Global Financial Crash Research Articles

After Neoliberalism: Economic Theory and Policy in the Polycrisis1

AbstractMainstream economic theory and policy have struggled to address (and in some cases have made worse) the multiple economic crises since 2008—global financial crash, austerity, stalled productivity, wage stagnation, rising inequality, inflation, climate and environmental breakdown. At the root of this failure is the ‘ontological individualism’ which underpins neoclassical economic theory: the belief that individual households and firms are sovereign actors. It proposes in its place a premise of ‘ontological institutionism’—the view that economic behaviour is primarily influenced by the institutional structures and rules within which it occurs. Commonplace in other social sciences, this view radically changes economic analysis and policy prescription. Based on an explicit ethical definition of policy objectives, the article offers an ‘institutionally pluralist’ view proposing different kinds of institutions for five different spheres of economic life. Arguing that economic policy should be seen as a process of institutional design (not simply making markets more efficient), it offers some illustrative policy proposals in key fields, from climate change to business investment.

После неолиберализма и его провала: ноономика как возможность

The 2008 global financial crash and its ongoing spiraling consequences mark the failure of neoliberalism as a strategy of exit from the crisis following the collapse of the post-World War II international Bretton Woods Keynesian framework. Technological progress per se cannot solve the strategic impasse as the problems in productivity growth demonstrate. Modernization itself has to overcome the obstacles posed by a fundamental crisis of late modernity in the epoch of advanced capitalist decline noonomy provides an open field of research of the relations between scientific-technological progress and political economy in the 21st century. It focus on the progress of integration of science into a cognition based social production without exploitation. A comparative study with the ‘General Intellect” concept advanced by Karl Marx in Grundrisse and the related debates on this topic during the last decades could be fruitful. In this context, noonomy provides new insights and possibilities for a re-elaboration of a socialist strategy of exit from the global crisis.

Third place social infrastructure, after and in crisis: insights from a local case study

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, Digital Fabrication Laboratories (Fab Labs) have become a common feature of the urban landscape in cities throughout Europe. An emerging body of literature suggests that Fab Labs go beyond providing access to digital fabrication tools, and function as ‘third places’ as they enhance social connectedness. Drawing on a case study of a Fab Lab in the English city of Coventry, this article utilises the concept of ‘austerity urbanism’ to understand the changing nature of third places in England since the 2008 global financial crash. In doing so, we argue that a confluence of austerity urbanism and digital advancements has influenced both the emergence of new third places (such as Fab Labs) while simultaneously undermining long-established third places (such as libraries). As a result, vital aspects of social infrastructure are being shaped and reshaped in the contemporary era. The article reflects on what these changes mean for individual and community well-being.

Capitalist diversity or unevenness? Uneven and combined development, growth models and the crisis in the eurozone periphery

The ‘unevenness’ of European capitalism has been well established by Comparative Political Economy (CPE) as central to the origins of the eurozone crisis. The influential ‘growth models’ perspective has shown how the integration of export-led models in the ‘core’ with demand-led models in the periphery has led to the build-up of destructive current and capital account imbalances. However, CPE approaches are limited by their methodological nationalism, which stands in their way of adequately theorising the international dimensions of the crisis. In contrast, recent scholarship on Uneven and Combined Development (U&CD) and the global financial crash is more suited to overcome methodological nationalism, but existing contributions are let down by their lack of mid-range International Political Economy (IPE) concepts and their limited engagement with CPE. The main contribution of this article is to develop a new account of the origins of the eurozone crisis in Portugal and Ireland, by developing a framework that synthesises recent U&CD scholarship on the eurozone crisis and new developments in CPE, namely, the growth models perspective (GMP). This article shows how the GMP provides U&CD with two key mid-range analytical tools, namely the notion of the ‘dominant growth coalition’ (DGC), and a wider conception of European multiplicity. The DGC concept makes it possible for U&CD analysis to account for peripheral politics, while also recognising the wider multiplicity beyond relations of core-periphery dependency. In turn, U&CD makes it possible for the GMP to take the international more seriously in its analysis of the political economy of capitalist diversity.

Mobilizing affect in Spanish film and screen media from the Great Recession to the present

This issue examines a range of affects in film, television and other forms of screen media produced in Spain following the global financial crash of 2008. Contributors interrogate the emergence as well as the limitations of counter-hegemonic discourse in contemporary Spain, unveiling neo-liberal capitalism’s stranglehold on society. Tracing the intensification of political dissent in the aftermath of the Great Recession, the articles featured in this Special Issue wrestle with the mobilization of what Chantal Mouffe has characterized as the passions – or the antagonistic confrontation between distinct political ideologies – over the last decade and a half.

Post-fiction affect after the Spanish crisis in La plaga/The Plague (Ballús 2013) and Estado de malestar/State of Distress (Ruido 2019)

This article examines post-fiction affect in filmic landscapes produced in Spain over the last decade, focusing on La plaga/The Plague (Ballús 2013) and Estado de malestar/State of Distress (Ruido 2019). It suggests post-fiction affect as an innovative type of audio-visual discourse that confronts neo-liberal logic following the global financial crash of 2007–08 and the ensuing crisis years in Spain (2008–14). What characterizes these documentary-inspired works is that they do not intend to represent reality but rather intervene in it. Going beyond Steven Shaviro’s work on affect in cinema, this text examines the specific post-cinematic paradigms at the turn of the twenty-first century and renewed forms of sensibility through emergent technologies and political affect.

Mobilizing During the Covid-19 Pandemic: From Democratic Innovation to the Political Weaponization of Disinformation

Political scholars express concern for the continued resilience of democracy in the face of multiple crises. In times of crisis, social movements articulate grievances and make demands of political leaders and policymakers. In contrast to the wave of pro-democracy movements following the 2008 global financial crash where protesters demanded accountability from elites, mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic has defied expectations in several key ways. First, the expectation for protesters to mobilize primarily online in the face of the restrictions and risk associated with large gatherings has not been upheld. Instead, we have witnessed widespread “offline” mass protests. Second, despite high mortality rates and significant disparities in the effectiveness of national public health responses, we have not witnessed widespread mobilizations demanding governments do better to protect citizens from the virus. Instead, we have seen two radically different responses: At one extreme, veterans of “pro-democracy” movements have “pivoted,” using their skills and experience to either make up for weak government responses to COVID-19 (Hong Kong) or to reinforce government efforts to contain it (Taiwan). At the other extreme, “antidemocratic” and predominantly far right-wing movements have mobilized against public health measures, circulating COVID negationist and conspiracy messages. Indeed, the political weaponization of disinformation has been a notable feature of pandemic mobilization. I analyze these contrasting trends, highlighting the challenges they pose for the effective handling of the pandemic, and their broader implications for democratic legitimacy and resilience. In so doing, I call attention to the ways that mobilization during the pandemic challenges scholars to revisit some of our assumptions about the dynamics of social movements in times of crisis, and how they can foster or erode democracy. The analysis also suggests that scholars analyzing the impact of information disorders on democracy need to pay careful attention to offline protest as well as online transmission.

Food insecurity among pregnant women living in high-income countries: a systematic review

BackgroundFood insecurity is an increasingly important public health concern in high-income countries following the 2008 global financial crash, and recently with the COVID-19 pandemic. Food insecurity has been understood as a highly gendered issue, affecting more women than men. As women have more complex nutritional needs because of their menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and breastfeeding, the nutritional impact of food insecurity is also greater for women than for men. This systematic review aims to explore pregnant women's experiences of food insecurity in high-income countries and to understand how food insecurity affects their health, wellbeing, diet, and nutrition. MethodsWe did a systematic review following PRISMA reporting guidelines. A comprehensive search strategy was developed using search terms such as “food insecurity” and “pregnancy outcomes”. We searched seven databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, PsychInfo, ASSIA, and CINAHL), grey literature, reference lists, and citations, as well as contacted authors. No language restrictions were used, and only studies primarily containing data collected from Jan 1, 2008, onwards were included. Database searches were completed in April 2022; supplementary searches are ongoing. Inclusion criteria is based on PECOS. Screening, data extraction, and quality assessment were done by two authors independently. This systematic review is registered on PROSPERO, number CRD42022311669. Findings27 studies met the inclusion criteria, with all studies published between 2015 and 2022. 24 (89%) of 27 studies were done in the USA, two (7%) in Canada, and one (4%) in the UK. Outcomes reported include dietary intake or dietary quality during pregnancy (seven [26%] of 27), gestational weight gain (seven [26%]), mental health (five [19%]), pregnancy outcomes including pregnancy complications, preterm birth, or birthweight (five [19%]), and other health outcomes or combination of nutrition, health, and wellbeing (three [11%]). Evidence synthesis is ongoing and will be complete by August, 2022. InterpretationThis systematic review suggests that food insecurity experienced during pregnancy was associated with negative health and nutrition outcomes. The rigorous searches are strengths of this study. A limitation is the restricted focus on studies done from 2008 onward. More research to guide efficient interventions that address food insecurity among pregnant women is needed. FundingNone.

‘Building back better’ and the search for values: critically reclaiming Temple’s social thought for a post-pandemic policy landscape

This article moves beyond William Temple’s Christianity and Social Order and gives an outline of its implications for public policy today in the context of religiously inspired terrorism, the global financial crash, COVID-19 and postsecularity.

LIQUIDITY OF FUTURES MARKETS OVER THE LAST QUARTER OF A CENTURY: TECHNOLOGY & MARKET STRUCTURE VERSUS ECONOMIC INFLUENCES

This study examines the major technological and market forces that have acted on the liquidity of futures markets over almost the last quarter of a century – equivalent to Professor Robert Webb’s tenor as Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Futures Markets. We examine the impact of electronic trading replacing open outcry, the impact of high-frequency trading and co-located trading, compare the liquidity impacts of these developments with the impact of major economic events, including the Global Financial Crisis and Covid-19 Pandemic. Using a stock index futures contract traded on Australian futures exchanges as an example, we find that technological advances have had a statistically significant but almost imperceptible influence on measures of liquidity of Australian futures contracts. In contrast, economic crises, and crashes such as the Global Financial Crash and the Covid-19 crash have had a massive and sustained impact on the liquidity of futures markets. Our results suggest that liquidity effects from technological innovations, while important, remain dwarfed by those from extreme outlier events.

Exploring potential for occupational therapy practice models within areas of social deprivation: A qualitative inquiry within a community-centred food cooperative

Background A health inequalities gap exists between wealthy and deprived areas. Community-level occupation-focused interventions may support citizens and address inequities within their environments. Since the global financial crash of 2008 and fiscal policy changes within the United Kingdom, there has been a rise in food insecurity. Community volunteer initiatives have responded by providing for their residents. The aim of this study was to explore how occupational therapists may be agents for social change through exploring perspectives of members and volunteers from a community food cooperative in an area of social deprivation. Methods Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with cooperative members and volunteers within a food cooperative established to address food insecurity in a local community. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results We found three main themes: It’s Not a Foodbank, Shared Hardship and a cross-cutting theme of Community. The results suggest occupation-focused responses can support the development of community and collective occupations thereby contributing solutions to shared problems. Conclusion A community-centred, rights-based approach has supported local community need where socio-economic disadvantage and health inequalities were identified. Scope exists for occupational therapists to work genuinely with (not for) communities to address occupational injustice through collective occupation.

Road to recovery

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings Commitment to sustainability initiatives can help banks slowly rebuild societal trust and reputation tarnished by high-profile scandals and the global financial crash. Key principles function as important frameworks to identify appropriate behaviors that additionally help enhance reputational risk management. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Home or hotel? A contemporary challenge in the use of housing stock

Since the Global Financial Crash, there have been significant changes to the private rented sectors across the UK. The PRS has become increasingly important to providing housing to millions of homes and has gained increasing political and regulatory focus. At the same time, there has been a substantial increase in the number of short-term holiday lets enabled by online platforms such as Airbnb. There are concerns that this housing stock is being lost from residential housing and exacerbates issues of housing equality. This paper undertakes a case study of Airbnb growth in London to examine changes in listings and provides insight into Airbnb hosts. The extant literature and analysis in this paper support the argument of the loss of privately rented properties, with housing stock being reallocated as tourist accommodation, potentially displacing local communities. Finally, the paper analyses the struggles this poses for policymakers, communities and housing providers.

Elliptical life in (post)crisis cinema from Spain

ABSTRACT This essay tracks the long-term effects of the global financial crash of 2008 in two films produced during the so-called postcrisis period in Spain (2014–). Borrowing Lauren Berlant’s term elliptical life, I examine Adán Aliaga and David Valero’s El arca de Noé (2014) and Polo Menárguez’s El plan (2019), which center on the disorientations facing recently fired security guards who draw up blueprints or make plans for alternative imaginaries in the context of ongoing crisis. Elliptical life, as a liminal space for nonsovereign subjects and an aesthetic form that deploys a loose filmic language, captures what Berlant calls “flailing” as characters express their desire for a surrogate reality free from the constraints of biopower. Through form and content alike, elliptical life embraces negativity as a strategy for chipping away at entrenched hegemonies, welcoming encounters with estrangement and/or incoherence. It sets its sights on transformational structures, privileging states of incompletion over endgame scenarios and revolutionary triumph. In the end, as both films work through the vicissitudes of elliptical life in contemporary Spain, they contemplate failure as a mode for interrogating aspirational notions of self-legitimation and control in a reality structured by the logic of late capitalism.

Good times for a change? Ireland since the general election

The 2020 Irish general election result was widely characterised as both a 'shock' and as a victory for the left. These claims are only partially true. The recent turn to the left was not a sudden development, but rather an expression of how the Irish political landscape has changed since the global financial crash. And while the electorate certainly appear more open to left-wing politics, the principal beneficiaries in terms of the popular vote (Sinn Féin) and access to power (the Greens) were parties with only questionable left-wing credentials. Before a new government could even be formed, the advent of the global health pandemic transformed the political terrain once more, with the two traditionally dominant centre-right parties (Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) agreeing to share power for the first time. While the restoration of the political status quo has exposed the weakness of the republican left, we suggest that the neoliberal policies that lie ahead may in time revive the fortunes of the socialist left.

Investors' trading behaviour and stock market volatility during crisis periods: A dual long‐memory model for the Korean Stock Exchange

AbstractThis study examines the impact of investors’ buy and sell trades on Korean stock market volatility across two crisis events, the Asian crisis of 1997 and the 2008 global financial crash. We investigate the trading behaviour of domestic vs. foreign and institutional vs. individual investors. Our results suggest that the buy and sell trades have an asymmetric effect on volatility that depends on the type of investor trading and on the phase of the business cycle. Buy orders appear to be more informative than sell orders since they mostly lower volatility in the pre‐crisis periods, while sell and post‐crisis buy trades affect volatility positively regardless of who trades (institutional or individual investors) and on what information (member, non‐member). Most importantly, decomposing total buy and sell trades into trader‐type categories reveals that some institutional investors are more informed traders that stabilize the market compared to individuals that always increase volatility. Foreign investors reduce volatility with their purchases and total trading activity in the whole Asian crisis sample, but only in the pre‐crisis period before the recent global financial turmoil.

Bye-Bye Barack: dislocating Afropolitanism, spectral Marxism and dialectical disillusionment in two Obama-era novels

ABSTRACT In contextually specific and formally distinctive ways, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers are fictional interrogations of Obama’s presidential pledge to resuscitate the American dream on the wake of the global financial crash. This paper explores how they supplement and challenge familiar tropes associated with African and American, rather than African-American, diaspora writing. Given broader debates within transnational literary studies about flows and exchanges (of people, finance, cultural production, dissemination, consumption et al.) linking the global South and North, I consider how these texts grapple with the complexities and complicities of contemporary neoliberalism through the lens of renascent African Marxisms. While my chosen writers could not be described as Marxist, I engage with more materially oriented scholarship, such as Krishnan’s Writing Spatiality in West Africa and Ngugi’s The Rise of the African Novel, to consider how Americanah and Behold the Dreamers circulate in a global literary marketplace where certain texts, not to mention authors, are seen as symptomatic of an African and/or Afropolitan and/or ‘Africapitalist’ renaissance. By grappling with Marxist-inflected scholarship, this paper interrogates the politics, as well as poetics, of the oft-conspicuous airbrushing of those socio-economic, specifically class concerns at the heart of these entangled debates.

Media, Money and Trust

Humans act based on the ideas they adopt and apply to circumstance with the intensity of action derived from the associated emotions. It follows that in any society the presentation of the ideas to citizens a major driver of citizen opinion and hence a major driver of social development. After the global financial crash governance ethical failure is proved a significant economic factor in modern society. This paper shows by actual example that the exact same issue pervades governance of institutional media. People seek truth but only offered bias and opinion without the ethical drive to find workable compromise and balance. The paper closes with the question will people pay for balanced news they can trust? I suggest they will, but as yet there is no media institution in NZ even trying to offer professional level of journalism in service of citizens. Note: The discussion is in relation to New Zealand, a country with sophisticated social infrastructure, the issues faced typical of those faced throughout the free world.

Emotional intelligence and venture internationalization during economic recession

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the factors related to entrepreneurs’ emotional intelligence that trigger the choice of venture internationalization after locally suffering the shock of an economic recession in a developing economy.Design/methodology/approachThe primary survey data were collected from 226 Uruguayan entrepreneurs and included their psychological traits and human capital characteristics after the most recent global financial crash of 2008. Personal interviews were conducted, and a “Trait Meta-Mood Scale” instrument (i.e. TMMS-12) was specifically designed for the measurement of emotional intelligence. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses.FindingsThis study demonstrates that in disadvantaged environments, such as developing regions suffering from a severe global crisis, the early internationalization process of a new firm is mainly triggered by entrepreneurs’ emotional intelligence attributes rather than conventional human capital-related attributes. Moreover, social–emotional competences are more significant than personal–emotional competences to explain entrepreneurs’ exporting behaviour in such an adverse context.Originality/valueThe effect of emotional intelligence on venture internationalization is investigated in situations in which entrepreneurs are pressured to pursue risk-bearing strategies, pushed by a disrupting shock that weakens the national economic condition (e.g. an economic recession). While previous findings have highlighted the importance of entrepreneurs’ human capital attributes in their entering foreign markets, few studies have analysed how the emotional intelligence competences of entrepreneurs lead them to internationalize. This study fills this gap in the literature on entrepreneurial behaviour by focussing on the emotional, cognitive and psychological qualities of entrepreneurs to explain their exporting business decisions.

Energy contagion analysis: A new perspective with application to a small petroleum economy

We put forward the novel concept of energy contagion, i.e. a deepening of energy-finance linkages under crisis conditions in energy markets. Further, we show how to construct tests for energy contagion through correlation, co-skewness, and co-volatility channels. The samples of our contagion measures are defined in terms of calm and crisis periods in the international crude oil market. In particular, we compare how these various co-moments in the energy-finance nexus change during: (1) Oil booms and slumps using semi-parametric rule-based algorithms; (2) Tranquil and turbulent oil price volatility episodes using a non-hierarchical k-means clustering algorithm. Energy contagion analysis is essential for financial stability analysis in economies where prosperity is linked to the prices of hard commodities. Our applications are performed on the oil-exchange rate and oil-stock market relationships of the small petroleum economy of Trinidad and Tobago. The main results show a negative oil-real effective exchange rate dependency; a weak oil-stock returns association; and the existence of several energy contagion channels in both financial relationships, which are sensitive to the contemporary global financial crash.