Which roads lead to Wall Street? The financialization of regions in the European Union

Abstract:

This paper investigates the financialization of regions in the European Union. It zooms in on the regional level and provides and systemic and macrostructural analysis of the factors that account an increase in finance and insurance activities.

Theoretically, the argument highlights the crucial importance of various forms of indebtedness as the social, economic and political relationship that constitutes financialization processes. Empirically, the paper stresses the sub-national dimension and thus contributes to fill an important, yet largely underappreciated gap in the political economy of finance.

In order to fully grasp the extent to which financialization has transformed capitalism throughout the last three decades, it seems indispensable to include regions into the analysis. By injecting geography into the political economic debate, the paper might animate future research and a renewed discussion on regional specificities.