The importance of the business sector of activity in financialisation. A multilevel analysis of British and Spanish corporations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/ris.2020.78.4.m20.002Keywords:
Financialisation, Multilevel model, Non-financial corporations, Shareholder valueAbstract
Despite the increase in literature on financialisation, most fails to cross theoretical paradigms with empirical data at firm level. Furthermore, very few sectorial studies have been conducted to date. This paper aims to bridge this gap by estimating the importance of sectorial affiliation in explaining the financialisation of large companies in the United Kingdom and Spain. As the definition of financialisation is often imprecise and unclear, we begin with a discussion of the limitations of indicators used in financialisation literature. Secondly, we build a financialisation ratio based on a unique dataset obtained from balance sheets and income statement variables of the companies listed on the FTSE -100 and Continuous Market index of 2000-2015. Finally, and for the first time in literature, we have applied a multilevel methodology in order to study similarities between the estimated sectoral patterns for Spain and the United Kingdom. Preliminary results reveal a relevant influence of the corporate sector in financialisation ratio variability. The paper opens up a new theoretical and methodological research agenda for analysing financialisation.
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Funding data
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
Grant numbers 746622
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad
Grant numbers CSO2016-78122-R
