The financial crises of the past decade unfolded at a time when many geographers were already exp... more The financial crises of the past decade unfolded at a time when many geographers were already exploring the spatiality of innovative financial structures and globalizing financial markets. The depth and extent of crises raised questions not only about their spatiality, but about their causes and impacts. Geographers were well positioned to discuss the former; but their explorations of these crises’ causes have largely centred on the workings of capitalism as a whole, not on financial processes within capitalism. Hyman Minsky's ‘financial instability hypothesis’, which provides a useful point of departure for understanding the links between financial processes and financial crisis, has been overlooked within economic geography. This chapter explains this lacuna and argues that financial instability should be incorporated into geographic financial discourse. So doing means making analytical space for real time and uncertainty. These elements are at the core of John Maynard Keynes’ ideas, on which Minsky's work builds. Real time and uncertainty are needed if money and credit – and in turn financial instability – are to play an essential analytical role. So bringing financial instability into spatial analysis requires a more Keynesian geography.
This chapter argues that a key element in 2007-9 subprime crisis was the transformation of racial... more This chapter argues that a key element in 2007-9 subprime crisis was the transformation of racial exclusion in US mortgage-markets. Until the early 1990s, racial minorities were excluded from participation in mortgage-finance due to banks' practices of discrimination. Racial exclusion in credit-markets was transformed. Racial minorities were no longer denied mortgage-credit. Instead, they were given access to housing credit under terms far more adverse than were offered to non-minority borrowers. The approach developed here emphasises that economic crises unfold in particular historical and institutional conjunctures of global capitalist processes. Financial processes are understood as key sources of contemporary capitalist crises. Instability and accumulation-problems can arise from financial dynamics both due to: fundamental uncertainty in financial processes and the emergence of speculative credit-flows within the economy. In the case examined here, lenders' innovation of providing minority-households with access to mortgage-finance via predatory loans was an independent root of the current crisis. Keywords:capitalist crises; credit-flows; economic crises; financial processes; political economy; predatory loans; racial exclusion; Racial minorities; subprime crisis; US mortgage-markets
This book challenges the conventional understanding of Hong Kong's political culture as one o... more This book challenges the conventional understanding of Hong Kong's political culture as one of indifference, a view articulated by many scholars. It takes a broad historical look at political participation in the former colony and includes an in-depth analysis of thirteen selected cases. The author provides a new understanding of the nature of Hong Kong politics, which may be described as a combination of political activism and a culture of depoliticization. The term "political indifference" is an umbrella term that is used to suggest the apathy, naivete, disinterest, passivity, and utilitarianism of Hong Kong people toward political life. The author focuses on the period from 1949 to 1979 because this time span in Hong Kong's history is filled with significant political activity despite attempts to label it as a period of political indifference. Hong Kong's numerous social organizations and the media were successful in organizing and mobilizing the people to place demands on the government. However, despite this activism, another segment of society generated a culture of depoliticization that served to check the political activism and constrict political expression. The epilogue carries the analysis to the present and highlights the development of Hong Kong's political culture from 1980 to 2003. It also examines the changing patterns of political participation in Hong Kong after the handover to China in 1997. The post-handover period is often characterized by increasing tension between the democratic and pro-China forces.
This chapter assesses the governance problems associated with the macrostructural changes that ha... more This chapter assesses the governance problems associated with the macrostructural changes that have been at work in global financial markets since the dawn of the neoliberal era — that is, since the end of the Bretton Woods era. The argument proceeds in four steps. First, the chapter identifies and elaborates on the key macrostructural changes currently ongoing in contemporary markets for finance. Second, the chapter exposits the macrostructural changes that have arisen from the shifts in financial firms' and investors' structures, strategies, and behaviours during the neoliberal era. Third, the chapter describes how the interaction of geo-economic imbalances, strategic shifts, and new financial instruments have altered the landscape of financial risk. Finally the chapter delineates the implications of these shifts for the macro governance of risk in the financial system, using the most recent global financial crisis triggered by massive defaults and arrears on subprime mortgage debt in the U.S. as a case in point. The principal assertion of this final section is this: the complex and far-reaching transformation of risk and risky behaviour implies that the macro-governance of risk must encompass a range of instruments — oversight by national and international authorities, macroeconomic stabilization policy, and emergency interventions and guidance by international financial institutions. Because of new developments in financial markets, the difficulties of identifying the locus of risk, and of intervening in contemporary financial crises to the satisfaction of all the interests involved are greater than ever before.
In the past three decades the financial sectors in virtually every nation have been integrated in... more In the past three decades the financial sectors in virtually every nation have been integrated into global finance, apparently expanding choice for domestic firms and residents from strictly local to global options. Paradoxically, however, this increasing openness has been paralleled by rising concerns among activists and social scientists about financial exclusion. Further, the period of financial globalisation has been accompanied by increasingly frequent, and ever more profound, financial crises. So the current period of financial globalisation has been linked with both more frequent financial crises and increasing levels of financial exclusion. The former occurs at the level of aggregates and nation-states, the latter at the level of regions and households. The link between financial globalisation and crisis has been extensively debated. But that between financial globalisation (and crisis) and financial exclusion has received virtually no attention. This can be traced to two factors. First, the dispute over financial globalisation and crisis has taken place almost exclusively among economists, on economists’ theoretical turf. They have conducted a dense, sustained debate at the macro level without ever tapping the micro level at which financial exclusion occurs. Second, most studies of financial exclusion have been done in geography and urban sociology. Because of the virtual absence of exchanges between these fields and economics, opportunities for creative interdisciplinary cross-talk have been missed.1
The financial crises of the past decade unfolded at a time when many geographers were already exp... more The financial crises of the past decade unfolded at a time when many geographers were already exploring the spatiality of innovative financial structures and globalizing financial markets. The depth and extent of crises raised questions not only about their spatiality, but about their causes and impacts. Geographers were well positioned to discuss the former; but their explorations of these crises’ causes have largely centred on the workings of capitalism as a whole, not on financial processes within capitalism. Hyman Minsky's ‘financial instability hypothesis’, which provides a useful point of departure for understanding the links between financial processes and financial crisis, has been overlooked within economic geography. This chapter explains this lacuna and argues that financial instability should be incorporated into geographic financial discourse. So doing means making analytical space for real time and uncertainty. These elements are at the core of John Maynard Keynes’ ideas, on which Minsky's work builds. Real time and uncertainty are needed if money and credit – and in turn financial instability – are to play an essential analytical role. So bringing financial instability into spatial analysis requires a more Keynesian geography.
This chapter argues that a key element in 2007-9 subprime crisis was the transformation of racial... more This chapter argues that a key element in 2007-9 subprime crisis was the transformation of racial exclusion in US mortgage-markets. Until the early 1990s, racial minorities were excluded from participation in mortgage-finance due to banks' practices of discrimination. Racial exclusion in credit-markets was transformed. Racial minorities were no longer denied mortgage-credit. Instead, they were given access to housing credit under terms far more adverse than were offered to non-minority borrowers. The approach developed here emphasises that economic crises unfold in particular historical and institutional conjunctures of global capitalist processes. Financial processes are understood as key sources of contemporary capitalist crises. Instability and accumulation-problems can arise from financial dynamics both due to: fundamental uncertainty in financial processes and the emergence of speculative credit-flows within the economy. In the case examined here, lenders' innovation of providing minority-households with access to mortgage-finance via predatory loans was an independent root of the current crisis. Keywords:capitalist crises; credit-flows; economic crises; financial processes; political economy; predatory loans; racial exclusion; Racial minorities; subprime crisis; US mortgage-markets
This book challenges the conventional understanding of Hong Kong's political culture as one o... more This book challenges the conventional understanding of Hong Kong's political culture as one of indifference, a view articulated by many scholars. It takes a broad historical look at political participation in the former colony and includes an in-depth analysis of thirteen selected cases. The author provides a new understanding of the nature of Hong Kong politics, which may be described as a combination of political activism and a culture of depoliticization. The term "political indifference" is an umbrella term that is used to suggest the apathy, naivete, disinterest, passivity, and utilitarianism of Hong Kong people toward political life. The author focuses on the period from 1949 to 1979 because this time span in Hong Kong's history is filled with significant political activity despite attempts to label it as a period of political indifference. Hong Kong's numerous social organizations and the media were successful in organizing and mobilizing the people to place demands on the government. However, despite this activism, another segment of society generated a culture of depoliticization that served to check the political activism and constrict political expression. The epilogue carries the analysis to the present and highlights the development of Hong Kong's political culture from 1980 to 2003. It also examines the changing patterns of political participation in Hong Kong after the handover to China in 1997. The post-handover period is often characterized by increasing tension between the democratic and pro-China forces.
This chapter assesses the governance problems associated with the macrostructural changes that ha... more This chapter assesses the governance problems associated with the macrostructural changes that have been at work in global financial markets since the dawn of the neoliberal era — that is, since the end of the Bretton Woods era. The argument proceeds in four steps. First, the chapter identifies and elaborates on the key macrostructural changes currently ongoing in contemporary markets for finance. Second, the chapter exposits the macrostructural changes that have arisen from the shifts in financial firms' and investors' structures, strategies, and behaviours during the neoliberal era. Third, the chapter describes how the interaction of geo-economic imbalances, strategic shifts, and new financial instruments have altered the landscape of financial risk. Finally the chapter delineates the implications of these shifts for the macro governance of risk in the financial system, using the most recent global financial crisis triggered by massive defaults and arrears on subprime mortgage debt in the U.S. as a case in point. The principal assertion of this final section is this: the complex and far-reaching transformation of risk and risky behaviour implies that the macro-governance of risk must encompass a range of instruments — oversight by national and international authorities, macroeconomic stabilization policy, and emergency interventions and guidance by international financial institutions. Because of new developments in financial markets, the difficulties of identifying the locus of risk, and of intervening in contemporary financial crises to the satisfaction of all the interests involved are greater than ever before.
In the past three decades the financial sectors in virtually every nation have been integrated in... more In the past three decades the financial sectors in virtually every nation have been integrated into global finance, apparently expanding choice for domestic firms and residents from strictly local to global options. Paradoxically, however, this increasing openness has been paralleled by rising concerns among activists and social scientists about financial exclusion. Further, the period of financial globalisation has been accompanied by increasingly frequent, and ever more profound, financial crises. So the current period of financial globalisation has been linked with both more frequent financial crises and increasing levels of financial exclusion. The former occurs at the level of aggregates and nation-states, the latter at the level of regions and households. The link between financial globalisation and crisis has been extensively debated. But that between financial globalisation (and crisis) and financial exclusion has received virtually no attention. This can be traced to two factors. First, the dispute over financial globalisation and crisis has taken place almost exclusively among economists, on economists’ theoretical turf. They have conducted a dense, sustained debate at the macro level without ever tapping the micro level at which financial exclusion occurs. Second, most studies of financial exclusion have been done in geography and urban sociology. Because of the virtual absence of exchanges between these fields and economics, opportunities for creative interdisciplinary cross-talk have been missed.1
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