Comparative Political Economy

Abstract

Introduction Our course examines the development and role of late 20 and early 21 century financial technologies in modern market crises, and with the goal of developing a research agenda capable of analyzing 21 century finance capitalism. A rigorous approach to doing so requires two steps: First, an in-depth look at (a) the manner in which debt is produced, structured, marketed, circulated, and consumed by way of bond instruments, securitization, and various structured financial products, (b) the role of derivatives markets (OTC, clearing-housed, and exchangetraded) therein, and (c) their role, if any, in the 2007-2008 financial crisis and its recent aftermath. Secondly, the course will begin to theorize our aforementioned objects of analysis, and pose the question of how a materialist theory of finance capitalism might go about critically analyzing the structure of our capital, credit, and money markets. This course will culminate in a 15 page research paper on a topic of the student’s choosing.