Integrating Finance into Global Production Networks

Abstract

For all its success in ‘globalizing’ regional development, the Global Production Network (GPN) approach has arguably failed to account for the role of finance in the dynamics of the global economy and regional development. This lacuna is significant as finance is arguably even more globalised and networked than production. To address this gap the paper distills the concept of the Global Financial Network (GFN) from financial geography and related scholarship, with advanced business services, world cities, and offshore jurisdictions at the centre. Interactions between the GPN and the GFN are discussed, focusing on the financing and financializing of GPNs and the co-evolution of globalization and financialisation. Integrating finance into GPN entails more than a simple extension of the GPN approach; it would also enrich it conceptually, and enable it methodologically and empirically.