What is Financialization?

– Manuel B. Aalbers –Many financial geographers use the term “financialization”. But what is financialization? It clearly has to do with finance and the “-ation” part suggests that it is not a state or end result but an action, something that is made. So let’s start by looking at the meaning of “finance”. The term […]

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What on Earth is Financial Geography?

—Dariusz Wójcik— Is not financial geography an oxymoron? Why should geographers, naturally interested in travel, outdoors, breathing fresh air while doing fieldwork be interested in money, taxes, assets and liabilities? If you were interested in these things, would not you become an economist or at least an accountant rather than geographer? Take a look at […]

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The Appleization of Finance: Reflections on the FinTech (R)evolution

—David Bassens, Reijer Hendrikse and Michiel van Meeteren— “[C]apitalism is a complex, adaptive system which has reached the limits of its capacity to adapt” (Mason 2015: xiii) In his book Postcapitalism (2015), the British journalist Paul Mason criticizes the ‘who is who’ of erstwhile revolutionary thinkers for their failure to anticipate the flexibility of the […]

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Investment Banking Since 2008: The Geography of Shrinkage and Shift

—Dariusz Wójcik, Eric Knight, Phillip O’Neill and Vladimír Pažitka— Investment banks have been powerful financial institutions at least since the late 19th century. Their power stems from their role as the key financiers and advisers of corporations and governments, giving them privileged access to information, the main resource in global financial markets alongside talent, which […]

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Housing and Finance across Space and Time

—Rodrigo Fernandez— This working paper provides an empirical overview of how housing-centred financialization developed across space and time. This is important because we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the geography of countries experiencing a debt-led housing bubble. Our data, collected within the frame of the Real Estate/ Financial complex (REFCOM) research group, show that […]

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