Engineering the Financialization of Urban Entrpreneurialism: The JESSICA Urban Development Initiative in the European Union

Urban entrepreneurialism and neoliberal urban governance are assuming new forms under finance‐dominated accumulation. We examine and contribute to theorizing the mechanisms through which urban governance is financialized, taking as a case study JESSICA, one of the European Union's initiatives to implement an ‘urban sensitive’ policy for sustainable and integrated development. Like other initiatives promoting financialization, JESSICA deploys the logic of finance to select and fund urban social initiatives and development projects on the basis of their potential return on investment (ROI). Understanding this process requires placing questions of political economy—how urban governance is shaped by the broader political‐economic context—with questions of governmentality—how stakeholders are enrolled in and come to take for granted new governance initiatives. Following the multi‐scalar institutional infrastructure is crucial to understanding how this works. Taking a relational multi‐scalar approach, we trace how changes at the supranational scale filter down to shape urban policy selection and performance in Sofia, Bulgaria, where we document how ROI calculations conflict with social welfare priorities. Contrasts between the trajectory of financialization of urban governance in the European Union and the United States demonstrate how this is geographically variegated, shaped by the broader context/conjuncture within which such financialization is embedded.     

利率市场化能降低企业营运风险吗?——基于融资约束和企业金融化的双重视角

如何提高金融服务实体经济的结构性调节功能并促进企业有序运营与健康发展是金融供给侧结构性改革的重要目标。利率市场化改革作为金融领域最重要的改革之一,其在微观层面如何影响实体经济运行引起了高度关注。本文首先从理论上诠释了利率市场化通过缓解融资约束、抑制金融化进而降低企业营运风险的逻辑关系。为识别利率市场化与企业营运风险之间的因果效应,本文以中国人民银行2004年10月取消金融机构贷款利率上限和2013年7月取消金融机构贷款利率下限为外生冲击,基于融资约束差异构造准自然实验为上述理论推断提供经验证据。特别地,利率市场化每增加1单位标准差,企业营运风险平均约下降样本标准差的2.39%。异质性分析表明,利率市场化对企业营运风险的抑制效应在融资约束程度较高、行业竞争程度较高、投资机会较多的企业中尤为明显。本文研究对于进一步优化资源配置效率、实现金融与实体经济高质量发展具有一定参考意义。     

Does the social security fund help non-financial enterprises to transform from the virtual to the real?

At its 19th National Congress, the Communist Party of China vowed to “strengthen the financial sector’s ability to serve the real economy.” However, many studies provide evidence of the opposite trend, a problematic “transition from the real to the virtual,” among Chinese enterprises. Meanwhile, the investment efficiency of China’s Social Security Fund (SSF), a public fund, attracts much attention. In this context, we use A-share listed companies in China from 2009 to 2018 to study the relationship between holding by the SSF and enterprise financialization. We find that SSF holding significantly inhibits financialization and that this effect is non-linear. Mechanism analysis indicates that SSF holding suppresses enterprises’ financialization mainly by improving their governance. Moreover, SSF holding more strongly inhibits small-scale (vs. large-scale), state-owned (vs. non-state-owned), and non-eastern (vs. eastern) enterprises in China. Furthermore, SSF holding can alleviate corporate value impairment caused by financialization. The conclusions enrich theoretical research and provide empirical evidence that may help regulatory authorities to guide investment by enterprises and prevent financial risks.     

Stock markets’ bubbles burst and volatility spillovers in agricultural commodity markets

Our paper focuses on commodity financialization and the gradual integration between commodity and financial markets, investigating to what extent shocks in stock markets impact commodity price volatility, and the persistency of the phenomenon. To this end, we estimate Volatility Impulse Response Function from stock markets to agricultural commodity markets over a symmetric window before and after two of the most important bubble bursts since the new millennium, the 2000 dot.com bubble and the 2008 financial crises. Results highlight that volatility spillover increased significantly after the 2008 financial crises, signalling a rising interconnection between financial and agricultural commodity markets.     

The role of speculation in international futures markets on commodity prices

The role of futures contracts on spot prices has been one of the key focus areas of research since the recent surge in commodity prices and increase in the volatility of commodity returns. However, no consensus arises from this literature, and hence it is difficult to link the use of futures contracts in agricultural commodities by non-hedgers and the growing food insecurity within developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to highlight causal relationships from futures contracts to spot prices of underlying assets, namely agricultural commodities. As research that focus on exchange-traded funds do not provide any clear conclusions, we focus on the imbalance between short- and long-open positions, this imbalance being caused by the exchange traded funds’ participation in futures markets. In this paper, we estimate relationships between financial variables including indicators for speculation in futures markets and the returns of cocoa, corn, soybean, wheat, coffee, rice, and sugar on a weekly basis from 1998 to 2013. Significant results lead to Granger-causality tests that in turn validate the hypothesis of a positive impact of speculation in futures markets to returns on the underlying commodities.     

An accounting revolution? The financialisation of standard setting

This paper analyses the political-economic content of the recent ‘revolutionary’ shift in financial accounting rules for listed companies, specifically the rise of IFRS and fair value. It connects this shift to the socio-economic changes that are currently being discussed in the literature on financialisation, e.g. the rise of shareholder value and the proprietary view of the firm. Two ideal-typical accounting systems are constructed on the basis of normative accounting theory and extant standards – historical cost accounting (HCA) and fair value accounting (FVA). The ‘accounting revolution’ of the past 10–15 years can be understood as a qualitative shift from HCA to FVA. It is further argued that these ideal-typical systems are related to different circuits or forms of capital – productive and money capital respectively – and to the particular perspective that these afford on the, capitalist firm. Inasmuch as financialisation is related to the circuit of money capital one can make sense of the rise to prominence of FVA, which represents the dominance of a financial view of the firm in the field of financial accounting. Throughout this paper, however, the limits to financialisation are also highlighted and traced back to the ineradicable manifestation of the circuit of productive capital.     

党组织参与治理与国有企业金融化

本文基于中国特色国有企业公司治理视角分析党组织参与治理在解决国有企业金融化中的作用,并以2006—2018年A股国有上市公司为样本进行实证检验。理论分析方面,通过整合金融化“预防性动机”“投机动机”和“盈余管理动机”构建综合的机制分析框架。实证研究发现,党组织通过“双向进入”“交叉任职”参与治理,有效抑制了企业金融化的“投机动机”和“盈余管理动机”,显著降低了国有企业金融化程度。党组织参与治理的效果在“讨论前置”实施前后、不同层级国有企业间以及不同方式的“双向进入”安排中存在显著差异。进一步研究发现,党组织参与治理对金融资产收益率没有影响,但显著提高了风险金融资产的市场价值。本文有助于丰富和发展中国情境下公司治理理论,为抑制国有资本“脱实向虚”、促进实体经济健康发展提供了政策启示。     

Are US-Dollar-Hedged-ETF investors aggressive on exchange rates? A panel VAR approach

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a multi-trillion dollar market that epitomizes financialization due to its recent growth. This study examines the behavior of U.S. listed currency hedged ETF investors towards changes in the underlying benchmark and foreign exchange rate from July 2011 to November 2015 using a panel VAR approach. We find that investors are able to anticipate changes in future exchange rates and invest in currency hedged ETFs prior to changes. Granger-causality tests confirm that these investors proactively trade before large real exchange rate movements. These results suggest that the use of financial instruments such as ETFs to hedge against exchange rate volatility may have itself become a source of volatility, which have implications for the further financialization of the ETF industry.