The role of elites in finance

What is it about?

Only a small group of highly influential decision-makers initially created Luxembourg’s financial center by exploiting the unique opportunities of the emerging euromarkets in the late 1950s. The increasing financial globalization also the shift from these previously local, often individualistic elite towards global financial institutions fundamentally reshaped Luxembourg’s financial center and integrated it deeply into the global web of finance.

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Why is it important?

We analysed Luxembourg’s emergence as a financial center from the early 1920s from a perspective that integrates mutually dependent processes at the macro and micro level. We argue that although historical coincidence was at play, a small group of influential individuals from both politics and finance shaped Luxembourg’s financial industry and adjusted its institutions over time; yet, the fundamentally changing architecture of the dominant elite has triggered Luxembourg’s subsequent path alteration and continuation until today.

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