The Evolution of Financial Services in the United States

This article surveys the literature on the historical growth and transformation of the US financial sector. The sector expanded rapidly between 1980 and 2006, during which its contribution to GDP rose from 4.8% to 7.6%. After the global financial crisis, the size of the sector stabilized at approximately 7% of GDP. After reviewing this literature, we examine recent developments, including the continued growth of high-fee alternative asset management and the shift away from banks to lending by nonbank financial intermediaries. We interpret both the growth and recent evolution of the sector as reflecting a continued transition to a more market-based financial system, with risk migrating away from banks and into markets.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Annual Review of Financial Economics

• Publication date

  2025-07-14

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1146/annurev-financial-082123-105625
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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