Problematising financial discourses.

60 p.This paper probes the relationship between the words and meanings, or the discourses, used to describe and understand financial matters and the actual occurrence of financial activity within countries. In doing so, it first performs a historical study of the popularisation of Internet day trading in America through a textual deconstruction of the discourses which were associated with its legitimisation and popularisation. Then, it attempts to quantitatively measure and distinguish the various relationships between discourse and substantive activity throughout the world through a series of statistical regressions. The regressions are run using various indicators of financial activity as their dependent variables, and the number of occurrences of various financial phrases, used in the context of specific countries, in the printed media as their independent variables. The results suggest that there are several relationships between financial discourses and financial activity and that financial discourses are more clearly related to the size of a country's financial markets, rather than the level of financial activity per se.Master of Science (International Political Economy