Globalisation and financialisation in the Netherlands, 1995 - 2020

Abstract

The Dutch economy is a small open economy. Due to its persistent large current account surplus, the Dutch net foreign assets have been increasing over time. The financial sector is dominated by special purpose vehicles created for tax reasons. The financial assets and liabilities of these vehicles are issued or held abroad, amounting to around 500 per cent of GDP. The remaining part of the financial sector has almost doubled in size relative to GDP over the past 25 years. While the growth of the banking sector stagnated since the financial crisis, the financial sector continued to grow because of the presence of a funded pension system. We analyse these developments using insights from stock flow consistent models for the Dutch economy that we have developed earlier. This analysis also enables us to highlight the role monetary policy played in facilitating and stimulating the growth of financialisation.