| Abstract: | Abstract The outbreak of an influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in 2009 coincided with a severe global financial downturn (2007–8). This paper examines the use of ‘contagion’ as a model for assessing the dynamics of both episodes: the spread of infection and the diffusion of shock through an intrafinancial system. The argument is put that a discourse of globally ‘emerging’ and ‘re-emerging’ infection helped to shape a theory of financial contagion, which developed, particularly from 1997, in relation to financial crises in ‘emerging markets’ in Southeast Asia. Conversely, concerns about the economic impact of a global pandemic have been influential in shaping public health responses to communicable diseases from the early 1990s. The paper argues that tracing the conceptual entanglement of financial and biological ‘contagions’ is important for understanding the interconnected global environment within which risk is increasingly being evaluated. The paper also considers the consequences of this analogizing for how financial crises are understood and, ultimately, how responses to them are formulated. |
