The aim of this timely work, which appears in the wake of the worst global financial crisis since the late 1920s, is to bring together high quality research-based contributions from leading international scholars involved in constructing a geographical perspective on money. Topics covered include the crisis, the spatial circuits of finance, regulation, mainstream financial markets (banking, equity, etc), through to the various ‘alternative’ and ‘disruptive’ forms of money that have arisen in recent years. It will be of interest to geographers, political scientists, sociologists, economists, planners and all those interested in how money shapes and reshapes socio-economic space and conditions local and regional development.
This handbook is a comprehensive and up to date work of reference that offers a survey of the state of financial geography. With Brexit, a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new financial technology threatening and promising to revolutionize finance, the map of the financial world is in a state of transformation, with major implications for development. With these developments in the background, this handbook builds on this unprecedented momentum and responds to these epochal challenges, offering a comprehensive guide to financial geography. Financial geography is concerned with the study of money and finance in space and time, and their impacts on economy, society and nature. The book consists of 29 chapters organized in six sections: theoretical perspectives on financial geography, financial assets and markets, investors, intermediation, regulation and governance, and finance, development and the environment. Each chapter provides a balanced overview of current knowledge, identifying issues and discussing relevant debates. Written in an analytical and engaging style by authors based on six continents from a wide range of disciplines, the work also offers reflections on where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. The book’s key audience will primarily be students and researchers in geography, urban studies, global studies and planning, more or less familiar with financial geography, who seek access to a state-of-the art survey of this area. It will also be useful for students and researchers in other disciplines, such as finance and economics, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, business studies, environmental studies and other social sciences, who seek convenient access to financial geography as a new and relatively unfamiliar area. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for practitioners in the public and private sector, including business consultants and policy-makers, who look for alternative approaches to understanding money and finance.
The first fifteen years of the 21st century have thrown into sharp relief the challenges of growth, equity, stability, and sustainability facing the world economy. In addition, they have exposed the inadequacies of mainstream economics in providing answers to these challenges. This volume gathers over 50 leading scholars from around the world to offer a forward-looking perspective of economic geography to understanding the various building blocks, relationships, and trajectories in the world economy. The perspective is at the same time grounded in theory and in the experiences of particular places. Reviewing state-of-the-art of economic geography, setting agendas, and with illustrations and empirical evidence from all over the world, the book should be an essential reference for students, researchers, as well as strategists and policy makers. Building on the success of the first edition, this volume offers a radically revised, updated, and broader approach to economic geography. With the backdrop of the global financial crisis, finance is investigated in chapters on financial stability, financial innovation, global financial networks, the global map of savings and investments, and financialization. Environmental challenges are addressed in chapters on resource economies, vulnerability of regions to climate change, carbon markets, and energy transitions. Distribution and consumption feature alongside more established topics on the firm, innovation, and work. The handbook also captures the theoretical and conceptual innovations of the last fifteen years, including evolutionary economic geography and the global production networks approach. Addressing the dangers of inequality, instability, and environmental crisis head-on, the volume concludes with strategies for growth and new ways of envisioning the spatiality of economy for the future.
What difference does it make to think about the economy in geographical terms? The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography illustrates the significance of thinking the 'economy' and the 'economic' geographically. It identifies significant stages in the discipline's development, and focuses on the key themes and ideas that inform present thinking in economic geography. Organised in sections with multiple chapters, The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography is a complete overview of the discipline that critically assesses: * Location, the quantitative revolution, the "new economic geography" * Geographies of globalization - making sense of globalization and its consequences; the geography of capitalism * Geographies of scale and place: local and global, space and place * Geographies of nature: agriculture; sustainable development; the political ecology and the social construction of nature * Geographies of uneven development: economic decline; technology; money and finance * Geographies of consumption and services: formal and informal spaces of consumption; the culture industries; performance * Geographies of regulation and governance: neo-liberalism, regulation, welfare Placing the discipline in vivid historical and contemporary context, The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography is a timely, essential work for postgraduates, researchers and academics in economic geography.
This edited collection explores the boundaries between political and financial geographies, focusing on the linkages between the changing strategies, policies and institutions of the state. It also investigates banks and other financial institutions affected by both state policies and a globalizing financial system, and the financial resources available to firms as well as households. In so doing, the book highlights how an empirical focus on the semi-periphery of the financial system may generate new perspectives on the entanglement between (geo) politics and finance.
An “artfully presented [and] engaging” look at the insidious effects of financialization on our lives and politics by the author of Treasure Islands (The Boston Globe). How didthe banking sector grow from a supporter of business to the biggest business in the world? Financial journalist Nicholas Shaxson takes us on a terrifying journey through the world economy, exposing tax havens, monopolists, megabanks, private equity firms, Eurobond traders, lobbyists, and a menagerie of scoundrels quietly financializing our entire society, hurting both business and individuals. Shaxson shows how we got here, telling the story of how finance re-engineered the global economic order in the last half-century, with the aim not of creating wealth but extracting it from the underlying economy. Under the twin gospels of “national competitiveness” and “shareholder value,” megabanks and financialized corporations have provoked a race to the bottom between states to provide the most subsidized environment for big business, encouraged a brain drain into finance, fostered instability and inequality, and turned a blind eye to the spoils of organized crime. From Ireland to Iowa, he shows the insidious effects of financialization on our politics and on communities who were promised paradise but got poverty wages instead. We need a strong financial system—but when it grows too big it becomes a monster. The Finance Curse is the explosive story of how finance got a stranglehold on society, and reveals how we might release ourselves from its grasp. Revised with new chapters “[Discusses] corrupt financiers in London and New York City, geographically obscure tax havens, the bizarre realm of wealth managers in South Dakota, a ravaged newspaper in New Jersey, and a shattered farm economy in Iowa . . . A vivid demonstration of how corruption and greed have become the main organizing principles in the finance industry.” —Kirkus Reviews
The subdiscipline of economic geography has a long and varied history, and recent work has pushed the field to diversify even further. This collection takes this agenda forward by showcasing inspiring, critical and plural perspectives for contemporary economic geographies. Highlighting the contributions of global scholars, the thirty chapters showcase fresh ways of approaching economic geography in research, teaching and praxis. With sections on thought leaders, contemporary critical debates and future research agendas, this collection calls for greater openness and inclusivity.
This book comprehensively explores the messy and contested relationship between everyday practices of remittance sending and receiving, processes of market making, and operations of micro- and global finance. Remittances and Financial Inclusion critically investigates a global migration-development agenda that aims to harness remittances for development by incorporating remittance flows and households into global financial circuits. The book develops a multidisciplinary perspective and combines insights from economic, development, and financial geography as well as international political economy and economic anthropology. It sets out a geographies of remittance marketisation approach to investigate the intricate and grounded ways in which remittance markets are constructed, the extent to which remittance flows and households can be (re)configured and incorporated into global finance, and why such processes are always fragile, contested, and in need of constant renegotiation. Drawing on extensive fieldwork research, the book provides an in-depth critical interrogation of the policies and initiatives that underpin remittance marketisation in Senegal, Ghana, and beyond. This volume will be especially useful to those researching and working in the areas of international development, contemporary geographies of finance and market making, and migration and remittances. It should also prove of interest to policymakers, practitioners, and activists concerned with the relation between migration, remittances, and finance in the Global South.
Speculation is often associated with financial practices, but The Time of Money makes the case that it not be restricted to the financial sphere. It argues that the expansion of finance has created a distinctive social world, one that demands a speculative stance toward life in general. Replacing a logic of extraction, speculation changes our relationship to time and organizes our social worlds to maximize the productive capacities of populations around flows of money for finance capital. Speculative practices have become a matter of survival, and defining features of our age are hardwired to their operations—stagnant wages, indebtedness, the centrality of women's earnings to the household, workfarism, and more. Examining five features of our contemporary economy, Lisa Adkins reveals the operations of this speculative rationality. Moving beyond claims that indebtedness is intrinsic to contemporary life and vague declarations that the social world has become financialized, Adkins delivers a precise examination of the relation between finance and society, one that is rich in empirical and analytical detail.
A revised and updated edition of the leading introductory text on the geography of economic life, from the local to the global Economic Geography is an engaging and accessible introduction to the different ways modern economic geographers understand, analyze, and interpret economic processes. This comprehensive text addresses significant questions relevant to contemporary economic life, from the activities of transnational corporations to issues surrounding workplaces and consumption. It encourages readers to explore how spatial patterns, places, networks, and territories shape large-scale economic processes. Accessible, highly-illustrated material presents fresh insights from the field—complemented by relatable, real-world examples that help students understand the social, cultural, and political contexts underpinning global economic processes. Now in its third edition, this extensively revised and updated textbook retains the features and thematic structure that have proved popular with students and instructors alike, while adding exciting new content. New chapters explore how the global economy and global development are institutionalized and governed, the economic geographies of global climate change, economic practices outside the capitalist mainstream, the role of migrants in labour markets, global production networks, and more. Introduces economic geography with a thematic approach including major concepts, current debates, and case studies Revised and updated to enhance international coverage, including three entirely new chapters on international development, alternative economies, and global climate change Substantial new content on labour migration, global production networks, and recent intellectual trends such as evolutionary economic geography Highly illustrated with diagrams and photographs closely integrated into the text Pedagogical aids including key case studies, learning objectives, text boxes, chapter essay questions, summaries, and further reading Core geographical concepts – such as place, networks and territory – are closely integrated into all chapters. Economic Geography: A Contemporary Introduction is an invaluable source of up-to-date knowledge for students new to the field, for those requiring a solid foundation, as well as for a broader academic and public readership with interest in this area of study.
