‘We all live in a Robbie Fowler house’: The geographies of the buy to let market in the UK

‘We all live in a Robbie Fowler house’: The geographies of the buy to let market in the UK, by Andrew Leyshon and Shaun French.

This is the final, revised version of a paper that is to be published in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations. It is based on research funded by the Financial Services Research Forum.

The paper can be accessed here.

Podcast: ‘We all live in a Robbie Fowler house’

You can listen to me discussing the UK buy to let market with Andrew Burden in the latest University of Nottingham podcast.  It is based on research undertaken with my colleague Dr Shaun French and funded by the Financial Services Research Forum.  The research will shortly be published as an end of award  report for the Forum and as a paper – ‘We all live in a Robbie Fowler house’: the geographies of the buy to let market in the UK – in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations in the summer of 2009 (see post above).  The podcast can be accessed by clicking here.

You can also download a recording of me giving a much earlier version of the paper at a workshop on The Political Economy of the Sub-prime Crisis, held at the University of Warwick in September 2008, via iTunes.   To access the file, go to the iTunes Store and enter ‘Buy-to-Let, Financialization and the Geographies of Risk’ in the search dialogue box in the top right hand corner.  The download is free of charge.  (This search should also enable you to click through to recordings of all the academic papers presented at this workshop).

You can also, for a limited time only, also catch an interview I did on the research with BBC Radio Nottingham, which is available on the BBC iPlayer. Click here, select 11/05/09 and then move forward to 2:41:40 (I’m sandwiched between an item on the availability of hand washing gels in hospitals and the best places for men to meet women … )

A Very Geographical Crisis: the making and breaking of the 2007-08 financial crisis

This is the final revised version of a paper written with Shaun French and Nigel Thrift which has been accepted by the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society and is due to be published later in 2009.  This is the version of the paper presented at the Financialization, Space and Place Workshop, held in London on 23rd April 2009.

To access the paper, click here.

Royal Geographical Society EGRG postgraduate prize 2009

I was very pleased to hear that Karen Lai has been awarded the 2009 RGS Economic Geography Research Group prize for best PhD in the sub-discipline. Her thesis, “Approaches to ‘Markets’: The Development of Shanghai as an International Financial Centre”, was undertaken here in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham.  I co-supervised her doctoral research with Shaun French. In 2008, Karen was awarded a prestigious Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Canada. Following that, Karen will be taking up a position in the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore.

New Masters of Research & MA/MSc by Research degrees

The School of Geography at the University of Nottingham is offering four new Research Masters from September 2009: Masters of Research (both MRes and MRes Sc), an MA by Research and an MSc by Research.

These courses are suitable for students who wish to focus primarily on undertaking a research-based Masters level qualification, with the option of taking up to 60 credits (a third of the degree) through taught modules. All students will be allocated two supervisors from the academic staff of the School of Geography, appropriate to research interests.  Meetings between students and supervisors will take place on a regular basis to provide advice and guidance and ensure that students are are fully connected to the research community in the School of Geography. These degrees offer the opportunity to experience what it is like to do a full PhD degree, but without the requirement to undertake three years of study.

Further details and application forms are available here or from Jenny Ashmore, Postgraduate Research Administrator, School of Geography, The University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD. Tel: 0115 951 5575. Email: jenny.ashmore@Nottingham.ac.uk. Potential applicants should give an indication of their area of research interest and include a brief research proposal with their application.

Financial exclusion and the geography of bank and building society branch closure in Britain

“Financial exclusion and the geography of bank and building society closure in Britain”, Andrew Leyshon, Shaun French and Paola Signoretta.

This is the final revised version of a paper that was resubmitted to Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, April 2008, and published in NS Volume 33, No. 4, pp 447-465.

Click here to read paper

ESRC CASE Studentship – Re-configuring service space in rural communities: bank and building society branch closures and ‘alternative’ economic networks

The School of Geography has been awarded an ESRC CASE Studentship to investigate the problem of financial exclusion in rural areas, in collaboration with the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC).  The studentship, which is fully-funded and pays fees and a stipend, will run from October 2009.  An advert appealing for suitable candidates will appear shortly (some useful pointers on eligibility requirements, which are more relaxed than conventional ESRC awards, can be found here).  The PhD will be supervised within the School of Geography by Dr Sarah Hall and Professor Andrew Leyshon, and by Dr David Land at the CRC.  Informal enquiries and initial expressions of interest should be directed to either Sarah Hall (sarah.hall@nottingham.ac.uk) or Andrew Leyshon (andrew.leyshon@nottingham.ac.uk).

Update 26.3.09:  see University Press Release, which has more details on this and other CASE awards at Nottingham.

MSc in Financial Services and Society

Starting in September 2009, the University of Nottingham is offering an MSc in Financial Services and Society, for which I will be the Course Director.  This interdisciplinary Masters provides a research-led teaching and learning programme on money and finance within the context of the disciplines of Business, Geography and Law.  It will provide students with an understanding of contemporary monetary and financial systems and will equip students with critical evaluation of core theoretical and empirical developments within the social sciences to equip them for research related careers.

It is available both full-time (one year) and part-time (two years) and it is possible to apply for funding to support your studies sufficient to cover fees at the UK/EU rate.

For more details on the course and the funding opportunities available you can click here, e-mail me on andrew.leyshon@nottingham.ac.uk, or call me directly on 0115-8466147.

Geographies of the New Economy

Geographies of the New Economy: critical reflections (2007), a book that I co-edited with Peter Daniels, Mike Bradshaw and Jon Beaverstock,  is now available in paperback through Routledge’s print-on-demand service.  While at $44 it’s much cheaper than the hardback (which is priced at an eye-watering $130) it still seems expensive for a paperback (well in the UK at least due to the collapse of the £ against the $!), especially when the point of POD is to lower costs by preventing the over production of books in the first place.  Nevertheless, given the subject of the book it’s appropriate and welcome that it is now available in a new format and at a lower price through the application of digital technoogy.

Financialization, Space and Place

Financialization, Space and Place

The 3rd Annual Meeting of the International Working Group on Financialization, Thursday 23^rd April 2009.

Sponsored by the Economic Geography Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society.

Venue: University of Nottingham’s London Office, 41-42 Berners Street, London, W1T 3NB[1].

Capacity at this venue is strictly limited and the event is almost full.  If you wish to register, then e-mail Louise McIntyre (louise.mcintyre@nottingham.ac.uk).  The registration fee is £25, which includes a buffet lunch, payable in advance.

Background and aims

The concept of financialization seeks to account for the empowering of financial markets and their influence over the unfolding of economy, polity and society. Processes of financialization are manifest at a number of scales, ranging from higher levels of instability within the economy as a whole, through pressure exerted on corporations by capital markets, to the equity effects of the financial system on individuals and households. To date, the growing body of work on financialization has only fitfully addressed its relationship to the geographies of money and finance. The workshop aims to provide an opportunity for the connections between financialization, space and place to be explored within an inter-disciplinary context, with contributions from geographers and non-geographers alike.

Schedule:

10:15-10.50 Registration

10:50-11:00 Introduction

11:00-12.30 Session 1

Gary Dymski (UC Riverside/Sacramento): What’s left of banking after the subprime crisis? spatial implications and policy directions.

Abstract: The subprime crisis arose in large part because of the intersection between four elements: changes in banking retail strategy, housing bubbles in key locations, historical patterns of financial exclusion and discrimination, and the emergence of an integrated set of liquid secondary/reinsurance markets. The unsustainable surge of fee-taking and loan-making in the subprime-driven phase of the housing bubble has compromised the entire edifice of banking and financial institutions and markets that had been built up during the 20-plus years of global neoliberal experience. That neoliberal institutional edifice was not completely functional in either social or economic terms – its dynamics gave rise to the problematic of financial exclusion, for example – but it had a certain logic. The utter desolation wrought by the banking/financial crisis of 2007-08 now raises the question, what remains of banking and finance after the subprime crisis? What will be the elements, how will they work in the context of the larger economy? This paper explores some possible futures for the banking and financial system, with special attention to the impact of this system on the distribution of economic activity and inequality in space. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these possible futures for pro-growth, egalitarian policies vis-à-vis banking and finance.

Shaun French (Nottingham), Andrew Leyshon (Nottingham) and Nigel Thrift (Warwick): A very geographical crisis: the making and breaking of the sub-prime crisis.

Abstract: In this paper we argue that an understanding of the historical geography of money and finance is essential for apprehending the catastrophic collapse of sub-prime, both as market and as securitized income stream, and of the ensuing financial crisis. The paper argues that the origins of the crisis can be located in four spaces. First, in the international financial centres of London and New York and, in particular, in the longstanding competition that has existed between the two for the title of pre-eminent international financial centre. Second, in the insularity of the everyday geographies of money that have emerged in such centres in the wake of the apparent hegemony of financialization. Third, in the geographical recycling of surpluses and deficits and more particularly the structural dependency that has grown up between China and the United States. Fourth and finally, the growing power of the financial media, centred in international financial centres and an increasingly significant agent in performing money and the economy in general, and in engendering mimetic forms of rationality. As a result, the current crisis is one that has been founded in an active use of financial space.

12.30-13:30 Lunch

13.30-15:00 Session 2

Anastasia Nesvetailova (City): The end of a great  illusion: the global credit crunch and liquidity meltdown.

Abstract: This paper argues that the credit crunch is the result of a particular problem in the world financial system, that is, of the phenomenon of ‘liquidity illusion.’ At the heart of this still poorly understood phenomenon lies the spiral of financial innovation and its effects on systemic liquidity. I examine the political-economic mechanisms that had sustained the illusion of liquidity during the boom years, and the mechanisms which contributed to its evaporation during the ongoing crisis. My analysis demonstrates that that while increased investment inflows have been one of the factors behind the North Atlantic credit boom of 2003-2007, the boom – including housing and securitization bubbles – has disguised the fact that the financial system in Anglo-Saxon economies has become progressively illiquid. Drawing on the scholarship of Hyman Minsky, I identify three pillars of the liquidity illusion – Ponzi finance; collective thinking by investors; and the credibility function performed by the credit rating agencies – and examine their role in the unravelling of the global liquidly illusion.

Sarah Hall (Nottingham): Financialized elites and the changing nature of finance capitalism: investment bankers in London’s financial district

Abstract: This paper uses the ongoing financial crisis to develop understandings of financial elites in London’s international financial district. In particular, I focus on the different modalities of power associated with the changing nature of ‘financialized elites’. I argue that in contrast to earlier generations of financiers, the power of contemporary investment bankers emerges through their role choreographing transnational networks of financial actors associated with securitised and structured products rather than being purely read off their social or educational background. I suggest that these networked forms of power relation are significant because, on the one hand, they have prevented investment bankers distancing themselves from the ongoing turbulence and uncertainty within the international financial system. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the ability of investment bankers to (re)produce such networks indicates that suggestions of the demise of ‘financialized elites’ in the wake of the ‘global credit crunch’ may be too hasty as previous financial crises demonstrate the considerable ability of ‘financialized elites’ to seize moments of conjunctural opportunity to reinvent themselves through new financial products and organizations.

15:00-15:30 Tea/Coffee

15:30-17:00 Session 3

Ewald Engelen and Anna Glasmacher (Amsterdam): Self-representations of financialization: international financial centres on the internet.

Abstract: The 1990s has spawned a large number of initiatives to present national financial centres as hot spots for international financial activities. While the competition for the footloose agents that dominate the financial markets plays itself out along multiple dimensions – regulation, taxation, human capital, infrastructure and lifestyle – it is striking that each and every would be financial centre has crafted an image of financialization and its unique place within it on the internet. In this paper we present a critical cultural geographical analysis of the images that are constructed of International Financial Centres on the worldwide web. Questions addressed in the paper are: Which identities are being promulgated? What kind of mixtures of contextual uniqueness and global similarity are used in the construction of the images of different financial centres? To what extent are these images gendered? Are the website mainly serving marketing functions or do they serve other, more substantial functions? Can we perceive differences between European, American and Asian financial centres? How to account for these differences? What role does history and its cultural reflection play in the representation? And finally, do we see reflections of the credit crisis that is currently playing itself out in the self-representations presented on the internet?

Julie Froud, Alan Harding, Sukhdev Johal, Adam Leaver, Karel Williams (CRESC/Manchester): Does the UK have a sustainable business model?

Abstract: Questions about the sustainability of the national business model are back on the agenda as Peter Mandelson discovers “Britain needs an economy with less financial engineering and more real engineering”. The paper divides into three sections. The first section considers successive dystopias or grounded fears about a future that does not work, starting with 1980s deindustrialisation fears about whether manufacturing could generate a suitable quantum of exports and employment. The second section, on the UK economy since the mid 1990s considers the contribution of finance as leading sector, the North’s dependence on New Labour reflation and the national ecology of islands of affluence adjacent to deprivation. The third sector considers what is to be done when our anaemic private sector has created no net new jobs since the mid 1990s and the imploding financial sector requires hugely expensive bail outs.

17:00-17:30 Discussant and open discussion session

Paul Langley (Northumbria)

Andrew Leyshon, Jon Beaverstock, Shaun French and Sarah Hall, School of Geography, University of Nottingham (andrew.leyshon@nottingham.ac.uk).

---

[1] The office is a five minute walk from Goodge Street, Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road underground stations.