Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography? Injecting finance and financialisation into economic geographies

Abstract

This paper argues that the ongoing financial and economic crisis creates an opportunity
for economic geography to move to a centre stage of academic debates about the nature
of contemporary capitalism. Such a ‘newer’ economic geography needs to start by injecting
finance and financialisation into conceptualisations of economies and their uneven geographies
and by re-engaging with the issues of value(s), value flows and circuits of value. The
paper highlights one particular aspect of circuits of value that takes a form of credit–debt
relationship.

Full text

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2013, 6, 501–515
doi:10.1093/cjres/rst022
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Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography? Injecting
nance and nancialisation into economic geographies
MartinSokol
Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland, sokolm@tcd.ie
Received on June 12, 2013; accepted on August 5, 2013
This paper argues that the ongoing nancial and economic crisis creates an opportunity
for economic geography to move to a centre stage of academic debates about the nature
of contemporary capitalism. Such a ‘newer’ economic geography needs to start by injecting
nance and nancialisation into conceptualisations of economies and their uneven geogra-
phies and by re-engaging with the issues of value(s), value ows and circuits of value. The
paper highlights one particular aspect of circuits of value that takes a form of credit–debt
relationship.
Keywords: economic geography, nance, nancialisation, crisis, credit–debt relationship, uneven
development
JEL classications: G01, G10, G20, P10
Introduction
This paper argues that the ongoing nancial
and economic crisis creates an opportunity
for economic geography to move to a centre
stage of academic debates about the nature of
contemporary capitalism. Echoing the recent
calls by Benner et al. (2011), Engelen and
Faulconbridge (2009), Lee etal. (2009), Martin
(2011) and Pike and Pollard (2010), the paper
argues that nance and nancialisation need to
be injected in conceptualisations of economic
geographies if these are to provide a solid ana-
lytical handle on nancialising economies. The
paper suggests that such ‘newer’ economic
geography can be built on the foundations laid
down by ‘geographies of money and nance’
literature1 while re-engaging with the issues of
value(s), value ows and circuits of value. The
paper argues that the task of ‘newer’ economic
geography is to analyse the ways in which value
ows in nancialising economies. In particular,
there is a need to explore how nance partakes
(via circuits of value) in the (re)production of
social and spatial inequalities while also creat-
ing conditions for crises. The paper highlights
one particular aspect of circuits of value that
takes the form of credit–debt relationship.
The paper is organised as follows. First, the
paper revisits some recent contributions made
from within the literature on ‘geographies of
money and nance’. These contributions see
nancialisation as an inherently spatial pro-
cess and emphasise the need to embed nance
in the heart of economic geography analy-
sis while also highlighting the need for geo-
graphical perspective to inform the debate on
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502
Sokol
nancialisation. From this perspective, nan-
cialisation should be dened as representing
the search for spatial x. Building on these
insights, the paper then provides a provisional
list of pointers upon which one possible version
of a ‘newer’ economic geography approach
could be based. This is followed by a discussion
on a credit–debt relationship. Finally, the paper
offers some thoughts on the credit–debt rela-
tionship and its signicance for uneven devel-
opment in crisis-ridden Europe.
Geographies of money and nance
The literature on geographies of money and
nance has seen a dramatic growth over the
last number of decades. Seminal contributions
by Harvey (1982, 2006); Corbridge etal. (1994);
Leyshon and Thrift (1997) and Martin (1999c)
have spearheaded an increasingly vibrant and
expanding eld. Contributions to this eld
focused on topics as diverse as geographies of
housing nance, redlining and nancial exclu-
sion (Aalbers, 2005, 2007, 2011; Dymski, 2005;
Newman and Wyly, 2004); hybrid money (Smith,
2008); geographies of retail banking (Gál, 2004,
2009; Leyshon and Pollard, 2000; Marshall
etal., 2000; Pollard and Leyshon, 2000); small
rm nance (Pollard, 2003) or nancial prac-
tices in low-income households (Stenning
etal., 2010). Among others, the eld also con-
tributed to the debates on global nance, pen-
sion funds and investments (Clark, 2000, 2003,
2005; Clark and Wójcik, 2007); nancial inter-
mediation (French and Leyshon, 2004); nan-
cial centres and global stock markets (Grote
et al., 2002; Wójcik, 2011); nancial ows in
the global economy (Zeller, 2008); nance
and capitalism (Leyshon and Thrift, 2007);
nancial crises (Budd and Parr, 2008; Dymski,
2005); and, more recently, on nancialisation
(Engelen, 2008; French et al., 2011; Pike and
Pollard, 2010). Further impetus for research
on geographies of money and nance has been
provided by the onset of the nancial crisis in
2007. A number of contributions specically
addressed various aspects of the crisis from a
geographical perspective. This included the
work of Aalbers (2008, 2009, 2012) ; Dupuy and
Lavigne (2009); Dymski (2009, 2010); Engelen
and Faulconbridge (2009); French and Leyshon
(2010); French etal. (2009); Lee etal. (2009);
Marshall etal. (2012); Martin (2011); Sidaway
(2008); Smith and Swain (2010); and Wójcik
(2009), among others. It is not my intention to
provide a review of this literature here.2 Instead,
I will draw on several recent contributions—
which emphasise the need to embed nance in
the heart of economic geography analysis and
highlight the need for geographical perspective
to inform the debate on nancialisation—to
build a platform for the subsequent discussion.
A key starting point to emphasise here is
that nance should be understood as being
“central to the dynamics and trajectory of capi-
talism” (Lee etal., 2009, 728). This centrality
of nance has long been a feature of capital-
ism. Indeed, it has been already recognised by
Marx, but “Marx did not complete his analy-
sis of monetary and nancial phenomena”
(Harvey, 2006, 239). The treatment on money,
credit and nance is therefore “a major piece of
‘unnished business’ in Marx’s theory” (ibid).
The centrality of nance in capitalism had also
been recognised by Schumpeter who consid-
ered money markets ‘the headquarters of the
capitalist system’ (see Lee etal., 2009, 725). So
the central role of nance in capitalism is prob-
ably not that new. What is new, however, is that
the dominance of nance has been further rein-
forced by the process of nancialisation.
At this point it would be useful to dene what
nancialisation is. Among the most cited is the
denition by Krippner (2005, 181)who dened
(and empirically examined) nancialisation
as “a pattern of accumulation in which prot-
making occurs increasingly through nancial
channels rather than trade and commodity
production”, and that of Epstein (2005, 3), who
referred to nancialisation as “the increasing
role of nancial motives, nancial markets,
nancial actors and nancial institutions in the

503
Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography?
operation of the domestic and international
economies”. However, it is worth noting that
the debate about the denition of nancialisa-
tion (as well as its causes, manifestations and
consequences) continues.3 Crucially, economic
geographers have made a signicant contribu-
tion to this debate, highlighting the inherently
spatial nature of nancialisation.
Indeed, for French etal. (2011, 798), nancial-
isation is a “profoundly spatial phenomenon”
because it represents “a search for a spatial-
temporal x”. In other words, echoing Harvey
(1982, 2006), nancialisation can be seen as a
“quasi-resolution of the crisis tendencies of
contemporary capitalism” (French et al., 2011,
798). One can only speak of ‘quasi-resolution’,
because the problem of crisis cannot be satis-
factorily resolved under the capitalist system.
Indeed, capitalist crises cannot be avoided, they
can only be postponed and/or move around
geographically through temporal and/or spatial
‘x’ (Harvey, 1982, 2006). Building on Harvey’s
(1978, 1982, 2006) conceptualisation of ‘circuits
of capital’, Aalbers (2008, 149–150) has intro-
duced the notion of ‘quaternary circuit of capi-
tal’ that represents the capital market “as an
investment channel in its own right” (Aalbers,
2008, 150). From Aalbers’ (2008, 149)point of
view then, nancialisation can be characterised
“as capital switching from the primary, second-
ary or tertiary circuit to … the quaternary circuit
of capital”.4 This quaternary circuit of capital,
while “strongly attached to the other circuits of
capital” (ibid, 150), is “fundamentally different”
from other circuits of capital, not least because
“it is not producer or consumer market, but a
market designed only to make money” (ibid,
150). Importantly, as Aalbers (2008, 150)argues,
nancialisation “rewrites the rules of capi-
tal accumulation” and the quaternary circuit
“comes to dominate the other circuits”. So what
we have here therefore is a geographical deni-
tion of nancialisation as inherently spatial pro-
cess—as search for spatial-temporal x, part of
which is the emergence and growing inuence
of the quaternary circuit of capital.
The implications of the emerging new nan-
cialising5 economic regime—or what some
commentators refer to as ‘nance-led growth
regime’ (Boyer, 2000), ‘nance-dominated
accumulation regime’ (Stockhammer, 2008) or
simply ‘nancialised capitalism’ (Lapavitsas,
2009)—call for an urgent investigation by
economic geographers. Indeed, as Pike and
Pollard (2010, 29) have argued, nancialisa-
tion provides “an analytical opportunity and
political economic imperative to move nance
into the heart of economic geographic analy-
sis”. This view is supported by a number of
other recent interventions (Benner etal., 2011;
Engelen and Faulconbridge, 2009; Lee et al.,
2009; Martin, 2011). Indeed a group of geogra-
phers led by Dariusz Wojcik (see Benner etal.,
2011, 117)have argued that there is “an urgent
need and a unique chance to push the agenda
of a geographic take on nance”. They have
also highlighted the ‘inherently geographic
framework’ of ‘circuits of capital’ as a concep-
tual vehicle to do so. Meanwhile, Engelen and
Faulconbridge (2009, 589) have argued that
the nancial crisis “opens up opportunities
to locate the study of nancial services at the
heart of research in economic geography”.
Importantly, Pike and Pollard (2010) also
provide a number of useful points on how to
“move nance … into the heart of economic
geographical analysis” (ibid, 31) in order to
explore economic geographies of nanciali-
sation. They emphasise “the integral role of
nance in connecting the entangled sub-
disciplinary geographies of the economic
to the social, the cultural, and the political”
(ibid, 31) while suggesting that “nanciali-
sation is reinforcing the central position of
nance within economic geographies” (ibid,
34). Their analytical approach is informed by
“more holistic views of the circuits of capital”
(ibid, 37), which they interpret as connecting
“hitherto relatively discrete and separate spa-
tial circuits of nance, especially linking the
domestic realm of people, families, and house-
holds with the international nancial system”

504
Sokol
(ibid, 37). Related to this, Pike and Pollard
(2010) see nancial practices through the lens
of ‘nested interrelations’ (ibid, 37) in which
“nancialisation links different articulations
of agents, spaces, and places to uneven devel-
opment” (ibid, 39). The above views resonate
with points made by French etal. (2011) who,
inter alia, argue for a network approach to
nance and echo those made by Smith etal.
(2002) and Lee etal. (2008, 2009) who empha-
sise the prisms of ‘networks of value’ and ‘cir-
cuits of value’, respectively. These converging
views thus provide a platform on which subse-
quent discussion can be built.6
Towards a ‘newer’ economic
geography
Building on the above literature a provisional
list of conceptual points can be drawn to sum-
marise and consolidate the emerging ‘newer’
economic geography approach.7 First, following
Lee (2006, 430), it is useful to emphasise that
there are “no such things as economies, only
economic geographies” (see also Lee, 2002a,
2002b). Therefore, also, there are no nancial-
ising economies, only nancialising economic
geographies. Second, ‘newer’ economic geog-
raphy approach should recognise that econo-
mies (economic geographies) are best dened
as ‘networks of value’ (Smith etal., 2002), ‘cir-
cuits of value’ (Lee etal., 2008, 1113; Lee etal.,
2009, 726; see also Hudson, 2005) or ‘socio-spa-
tial value networks’ (Sokol, 2004, 2007). This
involves a recognition that “[v]alue is always
culturally constituted and dened” (Hudson,
2005, 1; original emphasis; see also Lee, 2006).
Third, ‘newer’ economic geography needs
to recognise the central role of nance in
these networks/circuits of value. This involves
examining the implications of nance for
both the operation of circuits of value and
their destruction. In other words, the atten-
tion needs to focus on the role of nance in
the ways in which value is produced, distrib-
uted, appropriated, consumed and destroyed
within society—over time and space. Fourth,
and more specically, it is crucial that ‘newer’
economic geography (re)engages with the
‘big’ questions of inequality—both social and
spatial—and the way in which nance partake
(through value networks) in the (re)produc-
tion of social inequalities and uneven develop-
ment at multiple spatial scales. Simultaneously,
the attention needs to be paid to the way in
which circuits of value break down to trigger
value destruction and economic crises. Iwould
like to emphasise the word simultaneously,
because the attention to socio-spatial inequal-
ities has to go hand in hand with the attention
to crises. Indeed, the current nancial crisis is
a fresh reminder that there are strong links
between inequalities and crises in capitalist
economies.8 Iuse a plural form links, because
there is more than one possible causal link:
inequalities (both social and spatial) can cause
the crises, but crises can (re)produce inequali-
ties. ‘Newer’ economic geography should
examine these causal links and explore mech-
anisms through which nance shapes circuits
of value that both exacerbate inequalities and
increase vulnerability to crises.
Fifth, and nally, ‘newer’ economic geog-
raphy needs to engage with the process of
nancialisation. Building on the discussion
in the previous section Iuse the term nan-
cialisation to mean the search for spatial-
temporal x and the related emergence and
growing dominance of the ‘quaternary circuit
of capital’ (Aalbers, 2008). It follows then that
‘newer’ economic geography needs to explore
the implications of this quaternary circuit of
capital for the ows of value in contempo-
rary capitalist economies. More specically,
the ways in which circuits of value operate
(and break down) in nancialising economic
geographies require attention. The eld for
investigation (and conceptualisation) is wide
open here, and Icannot even start addressing
it in the space given. Instead, Iwould like to
focus on one particular aspect of circulation of
value in nancialising economic geographies

505
Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography?
that requires, in my view, special attention: the
relationship of credit-and-debt.
Credit–debt relationship
I would like to argue that credit–debt relation-
ship represents a particular form of value cir-
cuit, which has been somewhat neglected in
economic geography so far, but the signicance
of which have increased dramatically with the
onset of nancialisation. More specically, it
appears that circuits of value based on credit–
debt relationships have been contributing a
great deal to the exacerbation of socio-spatial
inequalities in the run up to, and during, the
current crisis. In fact, it could be argued that
credit-and-debt is at the epicentre of the crisis.
Furthermore, it seems that credit–debt relation-
ships forged before and during the crisis will
continue to shape economic landscapes for
years (or even decades) to come and well after
the current crisis is over. For these reasons, it is
worth exploring this particular aspect of nan-
cialisation in a little bit more detail.
It is clear that the institution of debt has been
around for a very long time (Graeber, 2012). It
is also clear that debt has been an important
feature of nance. Indeed, it is worth not-
ing that one of the original meanings of the
word nance has been, according to Chambers
Dictionary of Etymology, directly linked to
debt—from Middle French nance, ‘ending,
settlement of a debt’ (Barnhart, 2010, 383). And
while nance, as discussed earlier, has been
central to trajectories of capitalism for centu-
ries, the volume of debt seem to have expanded
dramatically especially since late 1970s, making
it a distinctive feature of nancialisation (see
Palley, 2013). The raising debt levels have been
particularly visible in the USA, the largest and
probably the most nancialised economy in the
world. Stockhammer (2012, 60)has estimated
that business sector in the USA has increased
its gross debt from 52% of GDP in 1976 to
77% of GDP in 2009, while the gross debt of
the nancial sector increased dramatically from
16% in 1976 to 111% in 2009. It is also impor-
tant to note the rise of US household debt,
which increased from 45% of GDP in 1976 to
96% in 2009, with a “clear acceleration in the
early 2000s” (Stockhammer, 2012,60).
The rise of the household debt can be seen as
being part of a wider “shift to lending to house-
holds rather than to rms” (Stockhammer,
2012, 50)brought about by nancialisation (see
also Lapavitsas, 2009). Much of this lending
to households proceeded in the form of mort-
gage credit “which typically makes up to 80%
of household credit” (Stockhammer, 2012, 53),
with mortgages becoming “by far the largest
loan positions” (ibid, 50)of the nancial sector.
Indeed, the above mentioned acceleration of
household debt in the USA in early 2000s can
be directly attributed to the “explosion of mort-
gage-lending” (Lapavitsas, 2009, 117)—rst to
“households on signicant income”, then fol-
lowed by a rapid rise of sub-prime mortgage
lending to “poorer section of the US working
class” (ibid; see also Aalbers, 2009; Dymski,
2005; Langley, 2008; Newman and Wyly, 2004).
Lapavitsas (2009, 117)has argued that the sub-
prime market, despite its growth and size, was
probably “not large enough directly to threaten
USA, and even less global, nance”. What
made a difference was “the parallel growth
of investment-banking, particularly through
mortgage-securitisation” (Lapavitsas (2009,
117; see also Aalbers, 2008, 2009; Martin, 2011).
Indeed, complex nancial products associated
with the process of securitisation (for example
mortgage-backed securities, collateralised debt
obligations and credit default swaps) have been
frequently blamed for the eruption of the crisis
in 2007/2008 (see Christophers, 2009).
The (perceived) complexity of modern
nance, in turn, “breeds the impression of impo-
tence” (Christophers, 2009, 811). However,
Christophers makes a robust case for de-mys-
tication of nance. Indeed, according to him,
there is nothing complex about the mechanism
of credit under capitalism. In essence, money
lending enables “those with surplus money to

506
Sokol
earn more money, through interest payments,
by lending that money to those with a need to
put that money to work” (Christophers, 2009,
817, original emphasis). Simply put, credit–
debt relationship enables a transfer of values
between creditor and debtor in which credi-
tor is hoping to make a prot. Indeed, for a
credit-–debt relationship to ‘work’, the amount
of money ‘earned’ by the creditor from this
relationship over time must be larger than the
amount of money originally invested. In other
words, credit–debt relationship under capital-
ism could be seen a simple form of a circuit of
value (operating over time and space) where
a creditor extracts value from a debtor (see
Figure1). Iprefer to use the term credit–debt,
because for each ‘credit’ there is ‘debt’; for each
‘creditor’ and there is a ‘debtor’, and so for each
amount of value ‘earned’ by a creditor, there
is an equal value ‘extracted’ from a debtor.
What we have here, therefore, is a simple ow
of value between two economic agents, each
of which can be located in different social and
geographical spaces. In effect, this represents a
simple example of a ‘socio-spatial value ow’. It
is important to note this simple, yet fundamen-
tal, ‘transfer’ of value, because with each such
transfer, the gap between debtor and creditor
increases and the landscape of economic power
grows more unequal. Therefore, such a process,
if enacted, has important implications for the
(re)production of social and spatial inequali-
ties and in turn requires attention of economic
geographers.
It could be argued that, under capitalism, the
traditional role of the banks was essential to
lubricate the above system of credit–debt, by
taking on the roles of intermediaries between
the pool of creditors and the pool of debt-
ors, and charging a fee for the privilege (see
Christophers, 2009, 817). This does not neces-
sarily alter the fundamental transfer of value
that normally ows from debtors to creditors
(see Figure2). This is despite a perception by
borrowers that they are ‘receiving’ money (in a
form of a loan) from a lender. Aparallel could
be drawn here with exploitation under capi-
talist social relations of production. Aworker
receives money in a form of wages, but the
value actually ows from the worker to a capi-
talist. Thus, echoing Lee (2006, 417)who noted
that (capitalist) circuits of value are ‘inher-
ently exploitative’, credit–debt as a circuit of
value is, too, exploitative in its nature (see also
Lapavitsas, 2009, 131). In this sense, nancial
intermediaries can hardly be seen as unprob-
lematic and neutral institutions that simply
help to match supply and demand of money.
Figure1. Basic credit–debt relationship.

507
Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography?
Rather, nancial institutions could be seen as
active agents in (re)producing inequalities.
Simply put, nancial intermediaries lubricate
the extraction of value from debtors and its
transfer to creditors. As with previous exam-
ple, it is important to keep in mind that debtors
and creditors can be (and often are) located
in different social and geographical spaces.
Therefore, the process of value ow involving
simple nancial intermediation has, too, social
as well as spatial dimensions.
Financialisation has transformed the system
of credit–debt making in a number of ways.
The sheer increase in the volume of debt has
already been noted above. But this went hand
in hand with a signicant change in the circula-
tion of credit and debt, namely its securitisation
via global nancial markets—that is via ‘qua-
ternary circuit of capital’ to use Aalbers’s term.
In terms of mortgage nance, this led to a shift
from traditional ‘locally originate, locally hold’
model to ‘locally originate, globally distrib-
ute’ model (Martin, 2011). This move in effect
‘globalised local mortgage lending’ (Martin,
2011, 595) and inserted a number of new
intermediaries between (local) debtors and
(global) investors (Christophers, 2009; Martin,
2011), greatly extending the spatial dimen-
sion of the credit–debt process. But one thing
has not changed: the fundamental principle of
credit–debt relationship has not been altered.
As Brett Christophers reminds us, monetary
chains linking creditors with debtors ‘may be
longer and somewhat harder to untangle’, but
‘all we really have here is the same money
being lent and borrowed a number of times,
with lenders each seeking to make a return on
their investments in their respective borrowers’
(Christophers, 2009, 817). In the end of the day,
what the nancialisation of mortgage markets
and homeowners has led to is the “extraction
of capital from homeowners to nancial inves-
tors” (Aalbers, 2008, 152). In other words, the
logic of the extraction of value from debtors by
creditors remains rmly in place (see Figure3).
What is worrying is the extent to which house-
holds have been drawn into these nancialised
debt-related circuits of value (chiey through
mortgages, credit cards and other credit–debt
instruments) through a process that could
be best described as ‘exploitative inclusion’.9
Indeed, the scale of this ‘exploitative inclusion’
is such that one could argue that debt-related
value circuits amount to a new space of exploi-
tation in nancialising economies—in addition
to a more ‘traditional’ exploitation in capital-
ist production (see Figure4). Lapavitsas (2009,
126, 131) refers to the same phenomenon as
‘nancial expropriation’—or “[t]he extraction
of nancial prots directly out of personal
Figure2. Typical credit–debt relationship with bank intermediation.

508
Sokol
income” Lapavitsas (2009, 114). To put it differ-
ently, nancialised debt-related circuits of value
have been, through global nancial channels,
partaking on a systematic transfer of value and
wealth from poorer households to wealthier
investors.
Similar argument has been made by
Maurizio Lazzarato who have argued that debt
is, inter alia, a “mechanism for income redistri-
bution” (Lazzarato, 2012, 29)and that debtor-
creditor relationship ‘intensies mechanism
of exploitation and domination at every level
of society’ (ibid, 7). Debt, in his view, is “cen-
tral to understanding … neoliberalism” (ibid,
25), not least because “[i]n neoliberalism,
what we reductively call ‘nance’ is indica-
tive of the increasing force of the creditor-
debtor relationship” (Lazzarato, 2012, 23).
Thus, ‘indebted man’ (sic), or homo debitor
(ibid, 127)“now occupies the entirety of pub-
lic space” (ibid, 8). Within the power relation-
ship of debt–credit, Lazzarato argues, homo
Figure4. Stylized ows of value between nancialised subjects in the ‘debt economy’.
Figure3. Credit–debt relationship in nancialising economies (building on Christophers, 2009, 82).

509
Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography?
debitor is ‘free’, “but his actions, his behaviour,
are conned to the limits dened by the debt
he has entered into” (ibid, 31). Thus, “[y]ou are
free insofar as you assume the way of life …
compatible with reimbursement” (Lazzarato,
2012, 31, original emphasis).
However, households are not the only nan-
cialised subjects here. Firms (including banks
themselves) and entire countries (states) are
nancialised subjects or homo debitors too—
one way or another, they are all subject to
creditor–debtor relationships and the disci-
pline of nancial markets. Indeed, according to
Lazzarato, “[e]veryone is a ‘debtor’, account-
able to and guilty before capital” (Lazzarato,
2012, 7). In Lazzarato’s view, what is called
nancialisation is in fact “an enormous mecha-
nism for managing private and public debt”
(ibid, 23)and therefore, for him, debt economy
is a “more appropriate term than nance or
nancialised economy” (Lazzarato, 2012, 24).
However, Lazzarato (2012, 10 and 32) him-
self admits that we lack theoretical tools to
analyze this new debt economy and all its
implications. This is where ‘newer’ economic
geography should step in and help to build the-
oretical understanding of nancialising econo-
mies using critical geographical insights. The
ongoing nancial crisis in Europe creates an
opportunity and imperative to do so.
Financialisation, credit–debt and
uneven development inEurope
In this section, Iwould like to expand on the
‘debt economy’ theme and place it in the con-
text of crisis-ridden Europe to further tease out
the links between nancialisation, credit–debt
and uneven development. Iwould like to argue
that the European Union (EU) makes a perfect
case for investigation in this respect. Indeed, on
the one hand, nancialisation of the European
political economy proceeded apace in the run-
up to the crisis (see Lapavitsas etal., 2010, 2012;
Overbeek, 2012), and this was so “mostly as a
result of EU policies” (Raviv, 2008, 303). On the
other hand, the EU remains explicitly commit-
ted to the goals of social, economic and territo-
rial cohesion, with the latter aiming to address
the long-standing challenge of uneven devel-
opment in Europe. Before the crisis, optimism
about possible economic convergence run high
as several peripheral economies grew very fast
indeed, with Ireland becoming a ‘role model’ of
economic development in Europe (see Sokol,
2007, 231–232). However, the nancial crisis
that hit Europe in 2007–2008 and morphed into
sovereign debt crisis by 2010–2011 has thrown
European periphery into economic turmoil that
is threatening to wipe out any recent gains with
regard to territorial cohesion. The question arises
as to how ‘newer’ economic geography approach
can help to understand the crisis in Europe and
its implications for uneven development.
Building on the theoretical discussion in
previous sections, I would like to argue that
‘newer’ economic geography can offer a useful
angle on the issue, by mobilising the concepts
of spatial x and circuits of capital (value), by
injecting nancialisation into the analysis and
by seeing Lazzarato’s ‘debt economy’ through
geographical lens. At this junction, it is useful to
reiterate the point that spatial x is a response
to the underlying problem of capitalist accumu-
lation, namely the overaccumulation. Surplus
value extracted by capitalists is in a constant
search for protable deployment, and if this is
not to be found in rst three circuits of capital,
then, in nancialising economies, the surplus
value is channelled into the quaternary circuit.
Following this logic, the current crisis reects
the limits of the quaternary circuit to act as a
spatial–temporal x. Can the European crisis
be seen in thislight?
Perhaps the most cogent argument in this
direction has been advanced by Overbeek
(2012)10 who explicitly used the Harvey’s
concept of spatial x to argue that “linger-
ing problem of overaccumulation” in Europe
(Overbeek, 2012, 31)has led to the adoption of
number of accumulation strategies “based on
spatial xes” (ibid, 34). He further argues that

510
Sokol
“the grip of nance on the European political
economy” was strongest in those European
economies “where nancialisation constituted
the core of the response to the lingering prob-
lem of overaccumulation” (ibid, 36). Yet, despite
the fact that nancialisation “developed quite
unevenly in different European countries”, by
the end of the 20th century, “nance-led accu-
mulation had become the predominant growth
model” in Europe (ibid, 35). The crash of this
nance-led growth model and the ongoing cri-
sis creates an opportunity to see the European
‘debt economy’ through geographical lens and
(following Lee etal., 2009; Pike and Pollard,
2010; French etal., 2011) to examine, in a holis-
tic way, nancialising circuits ofvalue.
One way in which such circuits of value
can be approached is to start unpacking ows
of value between nancialised subjects in the
‘debt economy’ (see Figure 4). The process of
unpacking these value ows could and should
start at the scale of households. Indeed, people
(as workers, debtors and potentially as inves-
tors) are central to the circulation of values in
nancialising economic geographies. While we
know quite a bit about the space of exploita-
tion 1 (that is the insertion of workers into cir-
cuits of value through work and socially and
spatially segmented labour markets), we know
much less about the space of exploitation 2
(that is the insertion of debtors into circuits of
value through debt and socially and spatially
segmented mortgage markets). With regard
to the latter, there is an urgent need to better
understand the process of ‘exploitative nan-
cial inclusion’ and the various shapes, forms,
shades and scales it can come in. There is also a
need to examine the ways in which the space of
exploitation 1 (exploitation in production) and
the space of exploitation 2 (nancial exploita-
tion) are interrelated.
Faced with this double exploitation, most
European households have somewhat limited
options. They can try to engage with nancial
markets directly in an attempt to recoup some of
the income lost—although this option is open to
a limited number of higher-earning households
only (that is those who are less exposed to nan-
cial exploitation in the rst place). For many
households, the only other option is to use home
ownership as an investment (Figure4). Indeed,
as Aalbers (2008, 160)has argued, “[h]ousing
is a central aspect of nancialisation” (Aalbers,
2008, 160). One obvious line of research here
would be to look at the ways in which this par-
ticular type of credit–debt has manifested itself
in different European countries, regions, cities,
neighbourhoods and households. However,
given that the key aspect of the credit–debt
relationship is a ow of value between creditors
and debtors, the challenging task for such geog-
raphies of credit and debt would be to track the
ows of value between different social and geo-
graphical spaces. The way in which such ows of
value contribute to uneven development would
have to be explored.
The existing literature offers useful, if only
broad, macroregional, picture of the contours
within which credit and debt has been operating
in Europe, pointing at the differences and func-
tional interconnectedness between the core
and the periphery. Indeed, it appears that much
of the Germany’s current account surplus has
been recycled as bank lending in the European
periphery (see Lapavitsas etal., 2010). In other
words, the search for spatial and temporal x
involved “injecting speculative [German] capi-
tal into the Southern periphery, especially in the
construction sector” (Overbeek, 2012, 38–39)
creating housing bubbles and debt-driven con-
sumption booms. These have now ended, while
leaving the periphery with massive debt burden
that will shape their economic path for decades
tocome.
The situation in the Southern periphery of
the EU is, to a large extent, echoed in Central
and Eastern Europe. Indeed, following the col-
lapse of state-socialism, the East European
‘super-periphery’ (Sokol, 2001) has been
integrated with western European economic
space on rather uneven terms (Smith et al.,
2002), and this has been fully exposed by the

511
Towards a ‘newer’ economic geography?
crisis, leaving East-Central Europe and the
former Soviet Union ‘the most affected of all
emerging markets’ (Smith and Swain, 2010).
We only now start to understand the ways in
which nancialisation and post-socialist trans-
formations in Central and eastern Europe are
interlinked. But what is clear is that Western
nancial expansion into East-Central Europe
was “inherently predatory” (Raviv, 2008,
311) and that Western nancial institutions
in Eastern Europe were able to “extract rent
incomes far in excess of their prots in the
west” (Raviv, 2008, 299), while leaving the
region increasingly indebted and economically
vulnerable.
As can be seen from this preliminary picture,
the crisis is set to deepen the gap between the
core and the periphery, unless bold actions are
taken at the European level. An opportunity
for newer economic geography is both to exam-
ine in more detail social and spatial effects of
nancialisation and to engage with policy dis-
cussions about more progressive economic
futures.
Conclusion
In this paper, Ihave attempted to argue that the
ongoing nancial and economic crisis creates an
opportunity for economic geography to move
to a centre stage of academic debates about the
nature of contemporary capitalism. Echoing
the calls of Engelen and Faulconbridge (2009),
Lee etal. (2009), Martin (2011) and Pike and
Pollard (2010), Ihave argued that nance and
nancialisation need to be injected in concep-
tualisations of economic geographies if these
are to provide a solid analytical handle on
nancialising economies. Ihave suggested that
‘newer’ economic geography can be built on
the foundations laid down by ‘geographies of
money and nance’ literature. This sees nan-
cialisation as an inherently spatial process—as
part of the search for spatial–temporal x—and
manifested in the emergence of the quaternary
circuit of capital. Building on these insights,
Ihave argued that the task of ‘newer’ economic
geography is to analyse the ways in which value
ows in nancialising economies. In particular,
there is a need to explore how nance partakes
(via circuits of value) in the (re)production of
social and spatial inequalities while also cre-
ating conditions for crises. I have highlighted
one particular aspect of circuits of value that
takes the form of credit–debt relationship.
Financialisation has transformed debt-related
circuits of value to such an extent and in such
a way (for example via ‘exploitative inclusion’)
that new space of exploitation has emerged,
based on extraction of value through nancial
means. The crisis that is being played out in
Europe (and is set to deepen uneven develop-
ment), creates an opportunity to analyse nan-
cialising economies from a ‘newer’ economic
geography perspective, which in turn may help
to shape discussions about more progressive
economic futures.
Endnotes
1 ‘Geographies of money and nance’ literature
could be seen as a strand of new economic geography,
or what Martin and Sunley (2011) call ‘proper’ eco-
nomic geography—to distinguish it from Krugman-
style ‘New Economic Geography’ (see also Martin,
1999a, 1999b).
2 See Leyshon (1995, 1997, 1998); Tickell (2000) and,
more recently, Hall (2010, 2011, 2012) for detailed
reviews of the eld.
3 See Erturk etal. (2008); Froud etal. (2006); Martin
(2002) and Palley (2013).
4 Primary circuit of capital refers to investment in
production, secondary circuit refers to investment in
‘xed capital’ and tertiary circuit represents invest-
ment in science and technology, education, health
care etc. (see Sokol, 2011, 81–86 for a brief summary
of ‘circuits of capital’ and ‘spatial x’ argument).
5 I prefer to refer to contemporary capitalist econo-
mies as nancialising economies, rather than nan-
cialised economies, because nancialisation is a
process that is far from complete and, just like neo-
liberalism (Peck, 2011), probably can never be actu-
ally fully completed.

512
Sokol
6 Elsewhere in geography, there have been parallel
attempts to link ‘varieties of capitalism’ literature
with the debate on nancialisation (see Engelen
etal., 2010). Iwould argue that while these attempts
differ in their emphasis, they are not necessarily
incompatible with the ‘newer’ economic geography
approach suggested here.
7 An alternative term that could be used here is ‘eco-
nomic geography of nancialisation’ (see also Pike
and Pollard, 2010), but I prefer the term ‘newer’
economic geography, which reects its rootedness
in new economic geography while also encompass-
ing more recent conceptual developments related to
nancialisation.
8 See Dymski (2005), Foster and Magdoff (2009),
Stiglitz (2012) and Stockhammer (2012) on the links
between social inequality and crisis; and Martin
(2011) and Aalbers (2009) on geographical aspects
of the crisis.
9 A similar term—‘exploitative greenlining’—has
been used by Newman and Wyly (2004, 53)speci-
cally in the context of mortgage markets. Iam using a
broader term ‘exploitative inclusion’ here to cover all
debt-related mechanisms including mortgages, credit
cards and other ‘credit’ instruments that are strongly
exploitative in their character.
10 Although see also Lapavitsas etal. (2010, 2012) for
similar set of arguments.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the guest editors of this special
issue, three anonymous referees, as well as my TCD
colleague Pádraig Carmody, for useful comments on
earlier versions of this paper. The usual disclaimer
applies.
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