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Volta Redonda is a Brazilian steel town founded in the 1940s by dictator Getúlio Vargas on an ex-coffee valley as a powerful symbol of Brazilian modernization. The city’s economy, and consequently its citizen’s lives, revolves around the Companha Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), the biggest industrial complex in Latin America. Although the glory days of the CSN have long passed, the company still controls life in Volta Redonda today, creating as much dispossession as wealth for the community. Brazilian Steel Town tells the story of the people tied to this ailing giant – of their fears, hopes, and everyday struggles.

Taking as its focus the not-so-special case of Detroit, which recently experienced the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, this article explores the financialization of American urban governance in both conceptual and concrete terms. The financially mediated restructuring of Detroit, through the imposition of emergency management by the state of Michigan and subsequently through the federal bankruptcy code, has been portrayed as an extreme event, with deep roots in histories of deindustrialization, racial exclusion, and suburban flight. It is not to downplay the significance of this experience to suggest, however, that the Detroit case also represents an ordinary crisis of a faltering regime of financialized urbanism. Compounding a shift toward entrepreneurial urban governance, cities now find themselves in an operating environment that has been constitutively financialized. Bondholder-value disciplines have become systemic in reach, along with an amplified role for financial gatekeepers like credit rating agencies; technocratic forms of financial management have been spreading and deepening, both in supposedly normal times and under externally imposed emergency measures; and in some cities the routinized play of growth-machine politics is being eclipsed by a new generation of debt-machine dynamics. While the ultimate focus of this article is on Detroit, its chief concern is with the framing of the city's storied financial crisis-theoretically and then institutionally.

This article is concerned with new modes of property-led financial accumulation emerging in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Focusing on the United States, the article traces the creation of an asset class derived from securitizing the rental income of foreclosed homes turned rental properties. The study strategically combines conceptual agendas often pursued separately. Theories of market formation rooted in science and technology studies inform the method of analysis so as to attend to the work of realizing markets, the role of calculative devices in market formation, and the contingent and conditional aspects of markets. This analysis reveals the single-family rental (SFR) asset class as a practical accomplishment. However, a broader framework rooted in political economy is necessary to attend to the broader significance of the SFR asset class in terms of power, politics, and the dynamics of capital accumulation. The article particularly focuses upon the historical and geographic contingencies making it possible to conceive of a large-scale SFR market, the work of state and capital market actors in reframing repossessed single-family homes as rental properties and the role calculative practices played in this process, and the strategies of issuers and credit rating agencies to frame a novel asset class for institutional investors. The SFR asset class affirms the fundamental role for housing in the ideology of capital, and speaks to new entanglements of financial actors and home life as financial accumulation is adjusted to the postcrisis context. Beyond shedding light on postcrisis housing financialization, the article demonstrates how economic geographers can carefully integrate theoretical perspectives to critically examine both the circumstances of market formation and the social, spatial, and political consequences of markets.

This article provides a conceptual understanding of the processes of financialization based on the concept of the biopolitics of housing financialization. Drawing on the Foucauldian categories of disciplining and regulation, we elaborate an empirical analysis of the mechanisms that, in Mexico, propagated the aspiration of various sectors of the population with limited resources to have access to a home of their own through mortgage loans. The construction of the notion of biopolitics of the financialization of housing is based on an empirical research conducted at two different times (2017 and 2020) and consisting of semi-structured interviews with owners of affordable housing in the periphery of the Metropolitan Area of the Valley of Mexico. It shows that, far from benefiting borrowers, their insertion in credit relations undermines income and negatively impacts their quality of life. The present discussion is articulated through five devices of the financial biocapitalism of housing —the discourse of personal wealth, socio-territorial stratification, the fallacy of social credit, the reality of peripheral life, and the reality of indebted lives—, which help to explain the epistemic violence inherent to a financialized model of economic and territorial development that produces economic and political gains for a few people, to the detriment of those who are supposed to benefit from housing policies. The analysis reveals that the devices implemented reflect the subtlety of the exercise of power in the financialized provision of housing. Desde el concepto de biopolíticas de la financiarización de la vivienda, este artículo aporta una comprensión conceptual de los procesos de financiarización. A partir de las categorías foucaultianas de disciplinamiento y regulación, se elabora un análisis empírico de los mecanismos que propagaron en México la aspiración de diversos sectores de la población con recursos limitados para acceder a una vivienda propia mediante créditos hipotecarios. La construcción de la noción de biopolíticas de la financiarización de la vivienda se fundamenta en una investigación empírica realizada en dos momentos diferentes (2017 y 2020) y que consiste en entrevistas semiestructuradas a propietarios de vivienda económica en la periferia de la Zona Metropolitana del Valle de México. Se demuestra que, lejos de beneficiar a los acreditados, su inserción en las relaciones crediticias merma los ingresos e incide negativamente en su calidad de vida. La presente discusión se articula a través de cinco dispositivos del biocapitalismo financiero de la vivienda —el discurso del patrimonio propio, la estratificación socioterritorial, la falacia del crédito social, la realidad de la vida periférica y la de las vidas endeudadas—, los cuales ayudan a comprender las violencias epistémicas inherentes a un modelo de desarrollo económico y territorial financiarizado que genera ganancias económicas y políticas para unas pocas personas, en detrimento de quienes supuestamente se beneficiarían de las políticas de vivienda. En función del análisis efectuado, se ha podido observar que los dispositivos implementados muestran la sutilidad del ejercicio del poder en la provisión financiarizada de la vivienda. Do conceito de biopolíticas da financeirização da moradia, neste artigo, contribui para uma compreensão conceitual dos processos de financeirização. A partir das categorias foucaultianas de disciplinamento e regulamentação, foi elaborada uma análise empírica dos mecanismos que propagaram no México a aspiração de diversos setores da população com recursos limitados para ter acesso a uma moradia própria mediante créditos hipotecários. A construção da noção de biopolíticas da financeirização da moradia está fundamentada numa pesquisa empírica realizada em dois momentos diferentes (2017 e 2020) e que consiste em entrevistas semiestruturadas com proprietários de moradia econômica na periferia da Região Metropolitana do Valle do México. Demonstra-se que, longe de beneficiar os acreditados, sua inserção nas relações creditícias diminui os ingressos e incide negativamente em sua qualidade de vida. A presente discussão está articulada por meio de cinco dispositivos do biocapitalismo financeiro da moradia — o discurso do patrimônio próprio, a estratificação socioterritorial, a falácia do crédito social, a realidade da vida periférica e a das vidas endividadas —, os quais ajudam a compreender as violências epistêmicas inerentes a um modelo de desenvolvimento econômico e territorial financeirizado que gera lucros econômicos e políticos para umas poucas pessoas, em detrimento de quem supostamente se beneficiará das políticas de moradia. Em função da análise efetuada, tem podido ser observado que os dispositivos implementados mostram a sutilidade do exercício do poder na provisão territorial financeirizado da moradia.

This article begins with a brief review of research on the development of ideas about the knowledge-based economy (analysed here as 'economic imaginaries') and their influence on how social forces within and beyond the academy have attempted to reorganize higher education and research in response to real and perceived challenges and crises in the capitalist order since the mid-1970s. This provides the historical context for three 'thought experiments' about other aspects of the development of academic capitalism. The first involves a reductio ad absurdum argument about different potential steps in the economization, marketization and financialization of education and research and is illustrated from recent changes in higher education. The second maps actual strategies of the entrepreneurial university and their role in shaping academic capitalism. The third speculates on possible forms of 'political' academic capitalism and their changing places in the interstices of the other trends posited in these thought experiments. The article ends with suggestions for a research agendum that goes beyond thought experiments to substantive empirical investigations.(HRK / Abstract übernommen).

The 2008 collapse of the world financial system, while proximately linked to the housing bubble and risk-laden mortgage backed securities, was a consequence of the financialization of the U.S. economy since the 1970s. This article examines the institutional and income dynamics associated with the financialization of the U.S. economy, advancing a sociological explanation of income shifts into the finance sector. Complementary developments include banking deregulation, finance industry concentration, increased size and scope of institutional investors, the shareholder value movement, and dominance of the neoliberal policy model. As a result, we estimate that between 5.8 and 6.6 trillion dollars were transferred to the finance sector since 1980. We conclude that understanding inequality dynamics requires attention to market institutions and politics.

Since 2008, we have observed a more prominent role of the state in economic life, with the widespread use of financial tools. Advancing discussions on the financialization of distributional politics, the expansion of financial statecraft as a result of fiscal conflicts, and the fragmentation of state power, this article explores how proliferating financial policies reconfigure the state and its relationship with the economy as well as its democratic foundations. I introduce the concept of financial security states to theorize reactions to mature financialization and its inherent instabilities, which provoke socially structured demands for public stabilization. Leveraging the tradition of fiscal sociology, I work out differences between taxation and welfare systems and those based on financial security. In particular, I show that financial security states exploit value uncertainties to postpone loss-reckoning, are carried by hybrid state-banking institutions, and leverage the states’ endogenous power within market-based finance. This article argues that the by-and-large regressive distributional outcomes and fiscal costs of financial policies remain opaque, due to strategic obfuscation, the failure of traditional modes of political mediation, and deficient budgeting procedures.

This article argues that financialization-shorthand for the growing influence of capital markets, their intermediaries, and processes in contemporary economic and political life-generates an analytical opportunity and political economic imperative to move finance into the heart of economic geographic analysis. Drawing upon long-standing concerns about the relatively marginal location of finance in economic geography, we emphasize the integral role of finance in connecting the entangled geographies of the economic to the social, the cultural, and the political. In the wake of various \"turns\" in the discipline, we develop this integrationist approach to finance in ways that retain political economies of states, markets, and social power in our interpretations of geographically uneven development. In this article, we discuss the plural nature of emergent work on financialization and develop three analytical themes to shape our discussion of financialization. Next, we elaborate our analytical approach by warning against functional, political, and spatial disconnections traced in the literature on the geographies of money. We then explore how financialization is broadening and deepening the array of agents, relations, and sites that require consideration in economic geography and is generating tensions between territorial and relational spatialities of geographic differentiation. Finally, we address the relative dearth of empirical work by examining the financialization of brands that have shaped the evolution of the brewing business and the development of new derivative instruments to hedge against weather risks. We conclude by arguing that our analysis of financialization demonstrates how finance occupies an integral position within economic geographies and reveals some of the sociospatial relations, constructions, and reach of existing and new actors, relations, and sites in shaping the uneven development of financialized contemporary capitalism.

Central banks have accumulated unparalleled power over the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Key for this development was the articulation and differentiation of monetary policy as a distinct policy domain. While political economists emphasize the foundational institutional changes that enabled this development, recent performativity-studies focus on central bankers' invention of expectation management techniques. In line with a few other works, this article aims to bring these two aspects together. The key argument is that, over the last few decades, central banks have identified different strategies to assume authority over \"expectational politics\" and reinforced dominant institutional forces within them. I introduce a comparative scheme to distinguish two different expectational governance regimes. My own empirical investigation focuses on a monetarist regime that emerged from corporatist contexts, where central banks enjoyed \"embedded autonomy\" and where commercial banks maintained conservative reserve management routines. I further argue that innovations towards inflation targeting took place in countries with non-existent or disintegrating corporatist structures and where central banks turned to finance to establish a different version of expectation coordination. A widespread adoption of this \"financialized\" expectational governance has been made possible by broader processes of institutional convergence that were supported by central bankers themselves.

White-collar criminality continues to be a significant issue in countries with differing levels of economic development. This paper provides a comparative analysis of white-collar crime and crises through an examination of the recent peer-to-peer (P2P) online lending crash in China. It considers criminological findings from major United States crises in light of China’s P2P online lending market failure through the lens of white-collar crime theory and research. The findings show that fraud was a main contributor to the P2P online lending crash and that various structural factors facilitated financial crimes that caused the collapse of the P2P online lending market. This study indicates that, similar to the U.S. experience, crime-facilitative environments allowed for endemic fraud in China’s online lending industry. It suggests that a primarily reactive approach to financial crime is less effective than a proactive system of compliance that includes more comprehensive and transparent financial regulation and law enforcement.