Along with the revolution in the information technology (IT) industry, the world economy has also witnessed a spectacular rise of the financial industry in recent decades. The GDP share of value-added by the U.S. financial sector more than tripled from 3 percent in 1950 to over 9 percent in 2007. Similarly, the U.S. financial industry profits quadrupled from about 10 percent of total U.S. business profits in the early 1980s to 40 percent in 2006 just before the onset of the recent global financial crisis. Gross financial assets in the United States increased from 100 percent of GDP in 1950 to 450 percent in 2010. A comparable development also took place in the United Kingdom, with its gross financial assets increasing from 50 percent of GDP in 1970 to 550 percent in 2010.1 Thus, it is no exaggeration to say that global finance has been one of the main engines that have driven the world economy since the end of World War II.