In the eye of the ‘perfect storm’: the final salary pensions crisis and financialisation of Anglo‐American capitalism

By Paul A. Langley. 2004

137 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article considers the crisis of UK and US final salary pension schemes. Contrary to current analysis that the crisis is the outcome of a 'perfect storm' - the unlikely coincidence of falling stock prices and bond rates - the paper argues that the crisis is constituted through several contradictory dynamics in the processes of financialisation, including the rise of theories/models of asset management which transform the investment strategies of pension funds, and, pressures to deliver shareholder value which erode the commitment of employers to occupational welfare. The article will be reprinted in the forthcoming Financialisation Reader (Routledge).

Subfields: Finance

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5b41fc37c2f226e61ccccfc2dddffb602d94900d

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Citations in the corpus

Geographies of money and finance II (2012, background): “…of neoliberalization in the late 20th century and financial innovations surrounding securitization demanded everyday householders to increasingly act as entrepreneurial investor subjects, rather than ‘passive savers’ as part of a wider individualization of risk within society (Langley, 2004, 2008).”
The Making of Investor Subjects in Anglo-American Pensions (2006, background): “Second, since the mid-1980s in the USA, and more recently in the United Kingdom, an accelerating shift from defined-benefit (DB) or `final salary' to defined-contribution (DC) or `money purchase' occupational pension provision has taken hold (Langley, 2004; Mitchell and Schieber, 1998).”
Financialization and the Consumer Credit Boom (2008, unknown): “As I have argued elsewhere (Langley 2004), asset management is crucial in the constitution of the networks of the contemporary capital markets.”
Financialization in the workplace: Hegemonic narratives, performative interventions and the angry knowledge worker (2013, background): “…2010), reduced share of national income (Dünhaupt, 2013) offshoring (Milberg & Winkler, 2009) less secure remuneration and benefits (Jackson, 2005; Langley, 2004), work intensification (Burchell, Ladipo, & Wilkinson, 2002) and increased hierarchical command (Mintzberg, Simons, & Basu, 2002;…”
The political economy of International Accounting Standards (2006, background): “Notably, the rise of institutional investors (Harms, 1998; Langley, 2004) has led to an increasing focus on relations between the financial and productive sectors.”
Financialization and the global economy (2010, background): “Many countries have shifted from a state-provided social security scheme to an increase prominence of private, market-based provision of pensions (Langley 2004, Blackburn 2007).”
The democratization of finance? Promises, outcomes and conditions (2007, background): “Large corporations and the state increasingly retreat from social obligations: the giant British companies which topped up their pension funds from current profits after the 1970s stock market crash, responded briskly after the 2000 crash by closing final salary pension schemes (Langley, 2004).”
Financializing space, spacing financialization (2011, background): “et al. (2006) and Langley (2004) to argue more recently in favour of a much narrower”