Innovation in global finance: impact on hegemony and growth since 1000 AD

This article argues that the creation and exhaustion of large scale financial innovations have played a key role in the rise of hegemony and in the stimulation of "logistics', very long waves of economic growth in the world-economy. It treats finance as both a "world-market control investment' as Wallerstein has put it, and an industry that experiences cycles of innovation, maturity, and overproduction. In the latter phase the financial system produces inflation and financial crisis. This model is assessed with respect to the rise and decline of logistics and hegemons from 1000 AD to the present. -Author