Pub Date : 2023-01-11DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221146545
Steven Rolf, Seth Schindler
The rise of digital platforms as a new form of business organisation concentrates power in the United States and China. Platform capitalism further intersects with and reinforces pre-existing trends towards state capitalism, where states more actively direct economies in response to economic turbulence and heightened geopolitical tension. The concentration of global business power within two states, combined with the increasing capacity for these states to leverage and direct platform activities for their own geopolitical–economic ends, has catalyzed the rise of ‘state platform capitalism’ (SPC). This paper develops the notion of SPC as an emergent logic of competition for both states and firms – in particular, the ways in which Beijing and Washington instrumentalise and mobilise domestic platform firms in pursuit of geopolitical–economic objectives, while platforms become increasingly interdependent with their home state institutions. Competition in the global political economy is increasingly centred on the recruitment of users and nations to these rival state-platform nexuses (national ‘stacks’) as a means of establishing and exercising extraterritorial economic and political power. Empirically, we identify variations between American and Chinese modes of practicing state platform capitalism, and we examine three axes within which this competition unfolds internationally: currencies, standards and cybersecurity.
{"title":"The US–China rivalry and the emergence of state platform capitalism","authors":"Steven Rolf, Seth Schindler","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221146545","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221146545","url":null,"abstract":"The rise of digital platforms as a new form of business organisation concentrates power in the United States and China. Platform capitalism further intersects with and reinforces pre-existing trends towards state capitalism, where states more actively direct economies in response to economic turbulence and heightened geopolitical tension. The concentration of global business power within two states, combined with the increasing capacity for these states to leverage and direct platform activities for their own geopolitical–economic ends, has catalyzed the rise of ‘state platform capitalism’ (SPC). This paper develops the notion of SPC as an emergent logic of competition for both states and firms – in particular, the ways in which Beijing and Washington instrumentalise and mobilise domestic platform firms in pursuit of geopolitical–economic objectives, while platforms become increasingly interdependent with their home state institutions. Competition in the global political economy is increasingly centred on the recruitment of users and nations to these rival state-platform nexuses (national ‘stacks’) as a means of establishing and exercising extraterritorial economic and political power. Empirically, we identify variations between American and Chinese modes of practicing state platform capitalism, and we examine three axes within which this competition unfolds internationally: currencies, standards and cybersecurity.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"21 5 1","pages":"1255 - 1280"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83501225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-10DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221148731
Andrea Furnaro
This article analyzes the geographies of the German coal exit by looking at the spatial dimensions of coal devaluation. It argues that while the Energiewende has been described as having a national origin, central triggers of the national coal exit agreement have to do with devaluation pressures created by the combination of global relations in the fuel markets, the territorial bordering of electricity and carbon markets at the European Union level, and place-based and multiscalar anticoal networks. The role of place-based resistance to the past, relational, expected, and imaginary concomitant forms of devaluation in lignite regions is also described as a key spatial barrier to the German coal phase-out. It will be shown that the emergence of a coal exit agreement, which represents a national fix to address not only existing market devaluation forces, but also a double legitimacy crisis for the government, was based on spatially uneven relations. The German case is relevant for the geographies of energy transitions for showing how multispatial strategies, the spatial organization of energy markets, and the territorial regulation of energy systems shape the possibilities for the devaluation needed to accelerate the pace of the fossil fuels phase-out.
{"title":"Geographies of devaluation: Spatialities of the German coal exit","authors":"Andrea Furnaro","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221148731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221148731","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the geographies of the German coal exit by looking at the spatial dimensions of coal devaluation. It argues that while the Energiewende has been described as having a national origin, central triggers of the national coal exit agreement have to do with devaluation pressures created by the combination of global relations in the fuel markets, the territorial bordering of electricity and carbon markets at the European Union level, and place-based and multiscalar anticoal networks. The role of place-based resistance to the past, relational, expected, and imaginary concomitant forms of devaluation in lignite regions is also described as a key spatial barrier to the German coal phase-out. It will be shown that the emergence of a coal exit agreement, which represents a national fix to address not only existing market devaluation forces, but also a double legitimacy crisis for the government, was based on spatially uneven relations. The German case is relevant for the geographies of energy transitions for showing how multispatial strategies, the spatial organization of energy markets, and the territorial regulation of energy systems shape the possibilities for the devaluation needed to accelerate the pace of the fossil fuels phase-out.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"5 1","pages":"1355 - 1371"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73535096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-10DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221138104
R. Goulding, A. Leaver, Jonathan Silver
Over the last decade, Greater Manchester's city-regional centre has become an important site for build to rent (BTR) housing development in the UK. The growth of this new tenure raises important empirical and conceptual questions about how far and through what means BTR has extended in post-industrial cities like Manchester, as well as how to theorise the global–local relations involved in BTR development. Drawing on a self-built database of 155 development projects incorporating 45,069 new housing units, we show that new-build BTR units have outpaced ‘build to sell’ (BTS) units almost two to one in Manchester's city-regional centre since 2012. We also found stronger international investment in BTR relative to BTS, illustrating BTR's more globalised and financialised form. Our paper understands BTR growth in Manchester as the outcome of a transcalar territorial network – an assemblage of national policy objectives, local state actors’ urban regeneration activity and heterogenous global investor groups with different priorities all seeking a return. We highlight the important role of national and local state subsidies and local authority joint ventures in constructing a territory conducive for BTR investment in Manchester. We also show how the fungibility of BTR assets as a ‘networked product’ widens the investment appeal of the tenure type, broadening and deepening housing financialization.
{"title":"From homes to assets: Transcalar territorial networks and the financialization of build to rent in Greater Manchester","authors":"R. Goulding, A. Leaver, Jonathan Silver","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221138104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221138104","url":null,"abstract":"Over the last decade, Greater Manchester's city-regional centre has become an important site for build to rent (BTR) housing development in the UK. The growth of this new tenure raises important empirical and conceptual questions about how far and through what means BTR has extended in post-industrial cities like Manchester, as well as how to theorise the global–local relations involved in BTR development. Drawing on a self-built database of 155 development projects incorporating 45,069 new housing units, we show that new-build BTR units have outpaced ‘build to sell’ (BTS) units almost two to one in Manchester's city-regional centre since 2012. We also found stronger international investment in BTR relative to BTS, illustrating BTR's more globalised and financialised form. Our paper understands BTR growth in Manchester as the outcome of a transcalar territorial network – an assemblage of national policy objectives, local state actors’ urban regeneration activity and heterogenous global investor groups with different priorities all seeking a return. We highlight the important role of national and local state subsidies and local authority joint ventures in constructing a territory conducive for BTR investment in Manchester. We also show how the fungibility of BTR assets as a ‘networked product’ widens the investment appeal of the tenure type, broadening and deepening housing financialization.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"1 1","pages":"828 - 849"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78981277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-12DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221140186
Heather Whiteside, Ilias Alami, Adam D. Dixon, J. Peck
The theme issue ‘Making Space for the New State Capitalism’ brings together insights from critical economic geography and heterodox political economy through a series of papers to be published in three installments, each accompanied by an introductory essay written by the guest editors. In this, the first of these introductory commentaries, we highlight some of the potentially productive ambiguities that accompany the new state capitalism rubric. Subsequent introductory commentaries will consider the consequences of embracing relationality, spatiotemporality and uneven development (along with the second group of papers); and the challenges and opportunities of thinking conjuncturally (with the third group of papers).
{"title":"Making space for the new state capitalism, part I: Working with a troublesome category","authors":"Heather Whiteside, Ilias Alami, Adam D. Dixon, J. Peck","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221140186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221140186","url":null,"abstract":"The theme issue ‘Making Space for the New State Capitalism’ brings together insights from critical economic geography and heterodox political economy through a series of papers to be published in three installments, each accompanied by an introductory essay written by the guest editors. In this, the first of these introductory commentaries, we highlight some of the potentially productive ambiguities that accompany the new state capitalism rubric. Subsequent introductory commentaries will consider the consequences of embracing relationality, spatiotemporality and uneven development (along with the second group of papers); and the challenges and opportunities of thinking conjuncturally (with the third group of papers).","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"67 2","pages":"63 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72439557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-12DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221143118
W. Conroy
Nancy Fraser's recent work on the hidden abodes of capitalism has quickly become a critical point of reference for those concerned with the racialized, gendered, and ecological conditions of capitalist reproduction. With that in view, this article seeks to extend Fraser's conceptualization through a sympathetic critique of her approach to capitalism's foreground/background nexus. After situating Fraser's project in relation to Marx (and his own engagement with capitalism's background conditions of possibility), it argues that (1) Fraser fails to adequately theorize how capitalist crisis is produced and resolved in space and (2) that Fraser obscures the relational-dialectical constitution of her own hidden abodes. This article then develops an alternative theoretical approach to capitalism's foreground/background relationship, based on a synthetic reading of Fraser's framework and the work of geographer Jason W. Moore. Finally, it closes with some brief reflections on the implications of this theorization for contemporary socialist politics.
南希·弗雷泽(Nancy Fraser)最近关于资本主义隐藏居所的作品，迅速成为那些关注资本主义再生产的种族化、性别化和生态条件的人的关键参考点。考虑到这一点，本文试图通过对弗雷泽对资本主义前景/背景关系的方法的同情批评来扩展她的概念化。在将弗雷泽的计划与马克思(以及他自己对资本主义可能性的背景条件的参与)联系起来之后，它认为(1)弗雷泽未能充分理论化资本主义危机是如何在空间中产生和解决的;(2)弗雷泽模糊了她自己隐藏住所的关系-辩证构成。本文在综合阅读弗雷泽的框架和地理学家杰森·w·摩尔(Jason W. Moore)的著作的基础上，发展了另一种理论方法来研究资本主义的前景/背景关系。最后，简要反思了这一理论对当代社会主义政治的启示。
{"title":"Background check: Spatiality and relationality in Nancy Fraser's expanded conception of capitalism","authors":"W. Conroy","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221143118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221143118","url":null,"abstract":"Nancy Fraser's recent work on the hidden abodes of capitalism has quickly become a critical point of reference for those concerned with the racialized, gendered, and ecological conditions of capitalist reproduction. With that in view, this article seeks to extend Fraser's conceptualization through a sympathetic critique of her approach to capitalism's foreground/background nexus. After situating Fraser's project in relation to Marx (and his own engagement with capitalism's background conditions of possibility), it argues that (1) Fraser fails to adequately theorize how capitalist crisis is produced and resolved in space and (2) that Fraser obscures the relational-dialectical constitution of her own hidden abodes. This article then develops an alternative theoretical approach to capitalism's foreground/background relationship, based on a synthetic reading of Fraser's framework and the work of geographer Jason W. Moore. Finally, it closes with some brief reflections on the implications of this theorization for contemporary socialist politics.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"183 1","pages":"1091 - 1113"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74645134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-12DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221140891
Tom Barnes
The relationship between job loss and workfare has been well documented. Workers who lose jobs, including long-term careers in previously secure employment, enter systems of workfare that churn them through precarious jobs in return for meagre income support. But the relationship between workfare and alternative systems of labour market assistance rolled out before job loss is less understood. To shed new light on this issue, this article critically analyses an attempt to synthesise two labour market policies implemented in response to the closure of Australia's automotive manufacturing industry in 2017. The first policy was an altruistic, spatially Keynesian response to deindustrialisation; the second policy was based on Australia's notoriously punitive system of workfare. The article asks: how was it possible to synthesise systems framed in mutually incompatible terms? This question can be addressed, it argues, by deploying an Agency-Structure-Institutions-Discourse (ASID) approach to understand how and why these labour market policies were hybridised. The article's results are instructive in a ‘post-pandemic’ environment in which opportunities to rollout alternatives to workfare will be forced to contend with resurgent workfare states.
{"title":"Punish, protect or redirect? Synthesising workfare with ‘spatially Keynesian’ labour market policies in times of job loss","authors":"Tom Barnes","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221140891","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221140891","url":null,"abstract":"The relationship between job loss and workfare has been well documented. Workers who lose jobs, including long-term careers in previously secure employment, enter systems of workfare that churn them through precarious jobs in return for meagre income support. But the relationship between workfare and alternative systems of labour market assistance rolled out before job loss is less understood. To shed new light on this issue, this article critically analyses an attempt to synthesise two labour market policies implemented in response to the closure of Australia's automotive manufacturing industry in 2017. The first policy was an altruistic, spatially Keynesian response to deindustrialisation; the second policy was based on Australia's notoriously punitive system of workfare. The article asks: how was it possible to synthesise systems framed in mutually incompatible terms? This question can be addressed, it argues, by deploying an Agency-Structure-Institutions-Discourse (ASID) approach to understand how and why these labour market policies were hybridised. The article's results are instructive in a ‘post-pandemic’ environment in which opportunities to rollout alternatives to workfare will be forced to contend with resurgent workfare states.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"25 1","pages":"871 - 889"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73090785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-04DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221135823
Dimitar Anguelov
Mega city-regions in the global South facing challenges posed by rapid urbanization have turned to infrastructural solutions, steeped in speculative ‘global-city’ imaginaries and national developmental aspirations, in order to unclog catch-up growth. This infrastructural imperative for growth reflects a broader infrastructure fix, as creditor states and development banks with geopolitical and geoeconomic interests advance competing market-based and state-led models to finance and develop infrastructure. In Jakarta, Indonesia, I examine the coming together of these models as they articulate with the political-economies of city and state, and their path-dependent restructuring following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. In Jakarta's speculative state-space political interests and developmental objectives of state and city governments are entangled with the capital accumulation strategies of State-Owned Enterprises. With a number of rail transit projects in the city-region driving a boom in Transit-Oriented Development, State-Owned Enterprises speculate on market conditions and the ‘world-class city’ dreams of middle-class residents to leverage their property assets. This financial speculation is equally premised on political speculation around the planning and execution of infrastructure projects, framed by the developmental politics of affordability and accessibility to the city. I examine how these strategies, practices and tensions come together to produce innovative governance arrangements in the provision and management of transport and housing through Public-Public Partnerships.
{"title":"Financializing urban infrastructure? The speculative state-spaces of ‘public-public partnerships’ in Jakarta","authors":"Dimitar Anguelov","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221135823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221135823","url":null,"abstract":"Mega city-regions in the global South facing challenges posed by rapid urbanization have turned to infrastructural solutions, steeped in speculative ‘global-city’ imaginaries and national developmental aspirations, in order to unclog catch-up growth. This infrastructural imperative for growth reflects a broader infrastructure fix, as creditor states and development banks with geopolitical and geoeconomic interests advance competing market-based and state-led models to finance and develop infrastructure. In Jakarta, Indonesia, I examine the coming together of these models as they articulate with the political-economies of city and state, and their path-dependent restructuring following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. In Jakarta's speculative state-space political interests and developmental objectives of state and city governments are entangled with the capital accumulation strategies of State-Owned Enterprises. With a number of rail transit projects in the city-region driving a boom in Transit-Oriented Development, State-Owned Enterprises speculate on market conditions and the ‘world-class city’ dreams of middle-class residents to leverage their property assets. This financial speculation is equally premised on political speculation around the planning and execution of infrastructure projects, framed by the developmental politics of affordability and accessibility to the city. I examine how these strategies, practices and tensions come together to produce innovative governance arrangements in the provision and management of transport and housing through Public-Public Partnerships.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"432 1","pages":"445 - 470"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76543762","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-04DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221141427
Bjarke Skærlund Risager
The relation between racialization and neoliberalism is relatively unexplored in urban geography, especially in the context of social democratic welfare regimes. This article aims to bridge this gap by applying the concept of racial neoliberalism, here referring to a co-constitutive relation between racialization and neoliberalism, to Denmark. Conceiving the country's so-called ‘ghetto’ politics as an expression of racial neoliberalism, the article retraces the development of this politics over the first two decades of the 21st century. I argue that territorial stigmatization and commodification of marginalized non-profit housing areas have been two co-constitutive expressions of racial neoliberalism that have intensified during this historical period. Examining three key policy moments through various grey literature, the article demonstrates how stigmatization has served to justify commodification, while the failure of the latter has been followed by intensified and bureaucratized stigmatization leading to new commodification efforts until culminating in the infamous 2018 ‘Ghetto Law’.
{"title":"Territorial stigmatization and housing commodification under racial neoliberalism: The case of Denmark's ‘ghettos’","authors":"Bjarke Skærlund Risager","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221141427","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221141427","url":null,"abstract":"The relation between racialization and neoliberalism is relatively unexplored in urban geography, especially in the context of social democratic welfare regimes. This article aims to bridge this gap by applying the concept of racial neoliberalism, here referring to a co-constitutive relation between racialization and neoliberalism, to Denmark. Conceiving the country's so-called ‘ghetto’ politics as an expression of racial neoliberalism, the article retraces the development of this politics over the first two decades of the 21st century. I argue that territorial stigmatization and commodification of marginalized non-profit housing areas have been two co-constitutive expressions of racial neoliberalism that have intensified during this historical period. Examining three key policy moments through various grey literature, the article demonstrates how stigmatization has served to justify commodification, while the failure of the latter has been followed by intensified and bureaucratized stigmatization leading to new commodification efforts until culminating in the infamous 2018 ‘Ghetto Law’.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"1 1","pages":"850 - 870"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75457233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1177/0308518X221135612
Renee Tapp, R. Peiser
This article contributes to debates within the financialization literature by examining the rise of monopolies in the US’ rental housing market. Drawing on a dataset of multifamily real estate transactions taken from the poorest census tracts in the US (so-called Opportunity Zones), we develop an antitrust framework and methodology for measuring market structure in housing using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. After detailing the geography of these market dynamics, we assess the specific strategies firms use to acquire market power and extract monopoly rents. This analysis reveals three critical aspects of real estate investors’ anticompetitive conduct: integration between housing subsectors, acquisition strategies that rapidly scale up ownership, and corporate forms that promote cooperation. The framework developed in this article and subsequent findings offer three directions policymakers, regulators, and activists can take to reform antitrust law and better ensure affordable housing.
{"title":"An antitrust framework for housing","authors":"Renee Tapp, R. Peiser","doi":"10.1177/0308518X221135612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X221135612","url":null,"abstract":"This article contributes to debates within the financialization literature by examining the rise of monopolies in the US’ rental housing market. Drawing on a dataset of multifamily real estate transactions taken from the poorest census tracts in the US (so-called Opportunity Zones), we develop an antitrust framework and methodology for measuring market structure in housing using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. After detailing the geography of these market dynamics, we assess the specific strategies firms use to acquire market power and extract monopoly rents. This analysis reveals three critical aspects of real estate investors’ anticompetitive conduct: integration between housing subsectors, acquisition strategies that rapidly scale up ownership, and corporate forms that promote cooperation. The framework developed in this article and subsequent findings offer three directions policymakers, regulators, and activists can take to reform antitrust law and better ensure affordable housing.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"31 1","pages":"562 - 582"},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89178647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1177/0308518x221136559
Franziska Cooiman
This article analytically links asset management and the digital economy by analyzing the structural power of venture capital (VC) investors. Therefore, I propose the notion of imprinting, which describes how financial actors, enabled by their structural position, shape businesses according to their specific logic. Concretely, I argue that VCs’ logic is one of assetization, whereby VCs turn startups into assets for themselves and their capital providers. To do so, VCs seek hypergrowth, selecting only companies with the potential to grow fast and large and decouple financial value from business fundamentals. Instead of the threat of exit, VCs establish direct and indirect channels of control: legally, via preferred shareholder rights, board seats, and payout conditionality; and as participatory capital, offering operational advice and access to their network. The article contributes to a nuanced understanding of financial sector power in contemporary capitalism.
{"title":"Imprinting the economy: The structural power of venture capital","authors":"Franziska Cooiman","doi":"10.1177/0308518x221136559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x221136559","url":null,"abstract":"This article analytically links asset management and the digital economy by analyzing the structural power of venture capital (VC) investors. Therefore, I propose the notion of imprinting, which describes how financial actors, enabled by their structural position, shape businesses according to their specific logic. Concretely, I argue that VCs’ logic is one of assetization, whereby VCs turn startups into assets for themselves and their capital providers. To do so, VCs seek hypergrowth, selecting only companies with the potential to grow fast and large and decouple financial value from business fundamentals. Instead of the threat of exit, VCs establish direct and indirect channels of control: legally, via preferred shareholder rights, board seats, and payout conditionality; and as participatory capital, offering operational advice and access to their network. The article contributes to a nuanced understanding of financial sector power in contemporary capitalism.","PeriodicalId":48432,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning A-Economy and Space","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85766568","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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