Words and Numbers: Financialization and Accounting Standard Setting in the United Kingdom

How is it possible that British policymakers resisted market‐based measurement for decades while financial economic concepts of decision making and valuation still gained widespread acceptance as a justification for accounting standard setting? This study introduces the concept of “technologies of financialization” to develop the theorizing of the rise of finance in the domain of accounting. Based on a genealogical history of narrative reporting in the United Kingdom, it demonstrates how references to qualitative reporting techniques helped to address recurring crises of measurement from 1969 to 1993, and ultimately contributed to the practical acceptance of market‐based measurement in the UK standard‐setting context. The data are interpreted through a cultural economy framework that directs attention to the power of referring to financial reporting as a combination of words and numbers in sustaining its theoretical redefinition “from below”—that is, by relating it to the experience of practicing accountants rather than accounting theory. As a technology of financialization, narrative reporting made financial economic ideals of market‐based measurement, decision usefulness, and future orientation appear operable in a real‐life reporting context. Whenever measurement reached its practical limits, narratives were relied on to explain the impact of price‐level changes, frame economic decisions, and relate unobservable future cash flows to present‐day strategies and resources. The insight into how narrative reporting practices have been laced into the reasoning of capital markets for over 40 years is timely because it illustrates that narratives can also play a more encompassing role and drive the turn toward wider corporate accountability on social and environmental impacts while hard measurements in this area are still being figured out.     

Does government funding promote or inhibit the financialization of manufacturing enterprises? Evidence from listed Chinese enterprises

This study examines how government funding type affects the financialization of manufacturing enterprises in China and discusses the different impacts of environmental factors. Funding for production can induce managers to increase expenses and reduce main business income by assigning social objectives, promoting corporate financialization. However, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may suffer from soft budget constraints and ignore short-term revenue; enterprises in competitive industries tend to hold cash for precautionary motivation. Therefore, their financialization is insensitive to government funding. In addition, funding for interest can inhibit corporate financialization by increasing debts for non-SOEs and those with financial background employees or facing strong financing constraints, because they are lacking in capital or sensitive to financial risks.     

供应链金融中的物流金融化问题探析

首先对供应链金融进行了概述,分析了物流企业所面对的资金回笼问题.在此基础上,提出了供应链金融中的物流金融化运作模式,探讨了其实施的具体步骤与运作过程.最后,分析了物流金融模式实施后的效果,即可以降低供应链企业之间的物流成本;加快资金的流通速度和货品的流动速度;增强物流企业的服务质量;供应链物流信息平台促进了资源共享和信息沟通等.     

加速折旧企业所得税政策与实体企业金融化——基于2014年固定资产加速折旧政策的准自然实验

本文选择2011-2017年我国沪深上市实体企业的样本数据,以2014年固定资产加速折旧所得税政策的出台为准自然实验,采用双重差分法实证检验了固定资产加速折旧政策对实体企业金融化行为的影响。研究发现,固定资产加速折旧政策出台带来的所得税抵税收益在提升实体企业固定资产和无形资产等实业投资的同时,会提升实体企业金融化水平。进一步研究发现,固定资产加速折旧政策的出台仅对现金流较贫乏、非国有企业、成长性较高以及规模较小的实体企业的金融化水平具有显著促进作用。研究结论不仅能够丰富企业金融化的理论研究,还有助于税务监管部门进一步调整优化固定资产加速折旧政策及相关配套税收政策,以便更好地防范、化解脱实向虚风险,促进实体企业高质量发展。     

企业金融化、产品市场竞争与企业创新

本文以2012—2018年我国A股制造业上市公司为样本,考察企业金融化、产品市场竞争与企业创新三者之间的关系。结果发现:制造业企业金融化对企业创新存在显著的挤出效应;产品市场竞争对企业创新有着显著的促进作用,而且当其他条件不变时,产品市场竞争负向调节企业金融化与企业创新的关系。进一步分析发现,在非国有企业组以及国有企业组中,产品市场竞争对企业金融化与企业创新关系的调节作用均显著,但国有企业中产品市场竞争的调节作用更强。     

Privatization,Financialization and State Restructuring in Eastern Germany: The case of Am südpark

Using a mix of survey data, results from a study on local planning politics and fieldwork, this article discusses the interplay of planning and welfare policies with global financial markets in the ‘making’ of social segregation in Halle‐Neustadt, a borough in the German city of Halle (Saale). Here, different developments come together. First, Halle‐Neustadt has experienced two waves of privatization, leading to a complete change of ownership structures, marked by the rise of financial investors. Second, welfare cuts have put increasing pressure on welfare recipients to live in the cheapest housing available. This has led to the emergence of a ‘Hartz IV business model’ based on low, but state‐subsidized, rents. Third, new planning policies have led to a massive drop in house prices, thus facilitating the use of ‘leverage’ strategies for financial investors. We expand on an already developed debate, providing new insights about relations between planning, state restructuring and financialization in a German context. We demonstrate that a broad array of changes in national regulatory settings, policy change in different sectors and local particularities can all be crucial in enabling financialization. We conclude that research should place greater emphasis on the state in providing explanations and take differences in context more seriously.     

German Finance Capitalism: The Paradigm Shift Underlying Financial Diversification

This article is concerned with the genesis of German financial liberalisation. A refined inventory of financial system change – including new meso-level data on finance pattern and the marketisation of banking – reveals a varied pattern of change across German finance. It is argued that this financial diversification can only be understood with careful reference to the underlying ideational factors. An analytical narrative traces how technocratic ideas of financial modernisation during the 1980s began to open up space for the political program of finance capitalism to absorb liberal and leftist discontents with insider control and bank dominance. Upon reaching a tipping point of discursive dominance, the program was distinctly adopted across the political economy as the result of compartmentally different political, ideational and structural factors; creating a non-hegemonic financial paradigm that became identifiable in the face of recent crises. By developing analytical steps that link incremental and dynamic theories of institutional change in a conceptual framework of belief shifts, the paper contributes to efforts of adapting existing models of change to complex domains and accounting for the dynamic nature of the paradigm-generating process. The findings inform the larger debate about internal capitalist diversity and the coherence of national economic models.     

Liquidity shocks,commodity financialization,and market comovements

We explore whether and how liquidity factors influence risk transfers between commodity and stock markets using a composite liquidity index and five different types of liquidity measures. We find that liquidity shocks, including both funding liquidity and market liquidity, are positively associated with comovements between commodity and stock markets after 2000, although the relationship is insignificant before 2000. The structural change indicates that financialization creates a role for adverse liquidity shocks to increase cross-market correlations. Further evidence shows that the effect of liquidity on cross-market correlations is state-dependent and intensifies when liquidity conditions deteriorate and asset returns sustain substantial declines. Our findings are not explained by business cycles.     

The Financialization of Housing Production in Brussels

This article focuses on the financialization of housing production in the Brussels‐Capital Region, examining the increased presence and use of financial capital in housing production. Information collected by local administrations when granting building permits is used to undertake a large‐scale examination of companies involved in housing provision in Brussels in the 2000s in order to identify the origins of capital invested in housing development projects and to assess to what extent it can be considered as ‘financialized’. The use of this data set allows me to estimate the ‘market share’ of financial capital in housing production and to analyse the geography of these investments in the built environment. This spatial analysis also provides some insights for a discussion about the possible social consequences of this influx of financial capital into the urban space. The task of empirically ‘measuring’ financialization raises numerous methodological questions. A choice has to be made between a wide range of definitions, both for financial activities and the financialization process. Moreover, for the purpose of quantifying the phenomenon, these concepts are made operational and turned into indicators. In addition to providing information about the investment of financial capital in housing production and the concrete forms it may take in a city such as Brussels, I venture to suggest that this article also contributes to the methodological ‘toolbox’ available to researchers in the field of financialization.     

The Financialization of A Social Housing Provider

Why does a social housing provider bet on interest rate fluctuations? This article presents a case study of the financialization of both housing and the state. Social housing in the Netherlands is provided by non‐profit housing associations that have since 1989 been set apart from the state. Many associations started developing housing for profit, borrowing on global capital markets or buying derivatives. Whereas other semi‐public institutions moved into the world of finance due to financial constraints, housing associations did so to capitalize on the possibilities offered by their asset‐rich portfolios. Vestia, the largest of them all, is an extreme––but not exceptional––case of what can happen when public goals are left to be realized by inadequately supervised and poorly managed private organizations. As a result of gambling on derivatives, Vestia had to be bailed out to the tune of over 2 billion euros. To recoup the losses, housing was sold off and rents were raised. Almost half of Dutch housing associations used derivatives, although most refrained from using them purely speculatively. The changes in the housing sector that led to its financialization cannot be separated from the wider financialization of the state.