This edited collection explores the boundaries between political and financial geographies, focusing on the linkages between the changing strategies, policies and institutions of the state. It also investigates banks and other financial institutions affected by both state policies and a globalizing financial system, and the financial resources available to firms as well as households. In so doing, the book highlights how an empirical focus on the semi-periphery of the financial system may generate new perspectives on the entanglement between (geo) politics and finance.

Geofinance is about a way of seeing the world. As a true introduction, this work aims at commencing a journey that very few have undertaken, namely witnessing the pioneering of a brand new theory that has an interdisciplinary aspect. Indeed, the world of today can no longer be analysed and understood solely from the perspective of finance, economics, political sciences, or geography. This silo mentality is no longer compatible with the complex world in which we are living. We need a holistic approach that builds bridges between various research fields thereby helping understanding the complex nature of a phenomenon. That phenomenon is geofinance. Intuitively, many among you already perceive how geopolitics affect the world of global finance, but also how the realm of international finance is impacting on world events, and their stakeholders, be they governments, businesses, and individuals. This articulate and incisive introductory textbook shepherds practitioners, cognoscenti, scholars, and students through their first encounter with geofinance. It offers a clear bodywork for exploring contemporary power conflicts by illustrating how the world of geopolitics and the realm of global finance are mutually shaping and interacting with each other. The overarching theme of geofinancial structures (contexts) and geofinancial agents (countries, institutions, markets, individuals wielding financial power) is accessible and necessitates no previous understanding of theory or current financial affairs. Throughout the book, case studies including the influence of financial markets on geopolitics, the contagion effects between sovereign and banking risks, the influence of geopolitical black swans on the world of international finance, the impact of geofinance on business, etc. emphasize the multi-faceted nature of the complex relationship between global finance and geopolitics in its broadest sense. Reading this book will provide a deeper and critical understanding of the current world of global finance and facilitate access to higher level course work and essays on geofinance. Both students of finance, geography, international relations, and mainstream readers alike will find this book an essential stepping-stone to a fuller understanding of contemporary financially driven conflicts.

Starting from the key concept of geo-economics, this book investigates the new power politics and argues that the changing structural features of the contemporary international system are recasting the strategic imperatives of foreign policy practice. States increasingly practice power politics by economic means. Whether it is about Iran’s nuclear programme or Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Western states prefer economic sanctions to military force. Most rising powers have also become cunning agents of economic statecraft. China, for instance, is using finance, investment and trade as means to gain strategic influence and embed its global rise. Yet the way states use economic power to pursue strategic aims remains an understudied topic in International Political Economy and International Relations. The contributions to this volume assess geo-economics as a form of power politics. They show how power and security are no longer simply coupled to the physical control of territory by military means, but also to commanding and manipulating the economic binds that are decisive in today’s globalised and highly interconnected world. Indeed, as the volume shows, the ability to wield economic power forms an essential means in the foreign policies of major powers. In so doing, the book challenges simplistic accounts of a return to traditional, military-driven geopolitics, while not succumbing to any unfounded idealism based on the supposedly stabilising effects of interdependence on international relations. As such, it advances our understanding of geo-economics as a strategic practice and as an innovative and timely analytical approach. This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, international political economy, foreign policy and International Relations in general.

This handbook is a comprehensive and up to date work of reference that offers a survey of the state of financial geography. With Brexit, a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new financial technology threatening and promising to revolutionize finance, the map of the financial world is in a state of transformation, with major implications for development. With these developments in the background, this handbook builds on this unprecedented momentum and responds to these epochal challenges, offering a comprehensive guide to financial geography. Financial geography is concerned with the study of money and finance in space and time, and their impacts on economy, society and nature. The book consists of 29 chapters organized in six sections: theoretical perspectives on financial geography, financial assets and markets, investors, intermediation, regulation and governance, and finance, development and the environment. Each chapter provides a balanced overview of current knowledge, identifying issues and discussing relevant debates. Written in an analytical and engaging style by authors based on six continents from a wide range of disciplines, the work also offers reflections on where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. The book’s key audience will primarily be students and researchers in geography, urban studies, global studies and planning, more or less familiar with financial geography, who seek access to a state-of-the art survey of this area. It will also be useful for students and researchers in other disciplines, such as finance and economics, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, business studies, environmental studies and other social sciences, who seek convenient access to financial geography as a new and relatively unfamiliar area. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for practitioners in the public and private sector, including business consultants and policy-makers, who look for alternative approaches to understanding money and finance.

The aim of this timely work, which appears in the wake of the worst global financial crisis since the late 1920s, is to bring together high quality research-based contributions from leading international scholars involved in constructing a geographical perspective on money. Topics covered include the crisis, the spatial circuits of finance, regulation, mainstream financial markets (banking, equity, etc), through to the various ‘alternative’ and ‘disruptive’ forms of money that have arisen in recent years. It will be of interest to geographers, political scientists, sociologists, economists, planners and all those interested in how money shapes and reshapes socio-economic space and conditions local and regional development.

This handbook is a comprehensive and up to date work of reference that offers a survey of the state of financial geography. With Brexit, a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new financial technology threatening and promising to revolutionize finance, the map of the financial world is in a state of transformation, with major implications for development. With these developments in the background, this handbook builds on this unprecedented momentum and responds to these epochal challenges, offering a comprehensive guide to financial geography. Financial geography is concerned with the study of money and finance in space and time, and their impacts on economy, society and nature. The book consists of 29 chapters organized in six sections: theoretical perspectives on financial geography, financial assets and markets, investors, intermediation, regulation and governance, and finance, development and the environment. Each chapter provides a balanced overview of current knowledge, identifying issues and discussing relevant debates. Written in an analytical and engaging style by authors based on six continents from a wide range of disciplines, the work also offers reflections on where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. The book’s key audience will primarily be students and researchers in geography, urban studies, global studies and planning, more or less familiar with financial geography, who seek access to a state-of-the art survey of this area. It will also be useful for students and researchers in other disciplines, such as finance and economics, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, business studies, environmental studies and other social sciences, who seek convenient access to financial geography as a new and relatively unfamiliar area. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for practitioners in the public and private sector, including business consultants and policy-makers, who look for alternative approaches to understanding money and finance.

The first fifteen years of the 21st century have thrown into sharp relief the challenges of growth, equity, stability, and sustainability facing the world economy. In addition, they have exposed the inadequacies of mainstream economics in providing answers to these challenges. This volume gathers over 50 leading scholars from around the world to offer a forward-looking perspective of economic geography to understanding the various building blocks, relationships, and trajectories in the world economy. The perspective is at the same time grounded in theory and in the experiences of particular places. Reviewing state-of-the-art of economic geography, setting agendas, and with illustrations and empirical evidence from all over the world, the book should be an essential reference for students, researchers, as well as strategists and policy makers. Building on the success of the first edition, this volume offers a radically revised, updated, and broader approach to economic geography. With the backdrop of the global financial crisis, finance is investigated in chapters on financial stability, financial innovation, global financial networks, the global map of savings and investments, and financialization. Environmental challenges are addressed in chapters on resource economies, vulnerability of regions to climate change, carbon markets, and energy transitions. Distribution and consumption feature alongside more established topics on the firm, innovation, and work. The handbook also captures the theoretical and conceptual innovations of the last fifteen years, including evolutionary economic geography and the global production networks approach. Addressing the dangers of inequality, instability, and environmental crisis head-on, the volume concludes with strategies for growth and new ways of envisioning the spatiality of economy for the future.