Ewa Karwowski
(King's College London)
Dariusz Wojcik
Format:
Workshop
Streams:
Politics and political economy
Sessions:
Wednesday 6 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Financial Centres of the Future – What Role for Africa and Latin America?.
Workshop W10b at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This workshop explores the current and future role of African and Latin American financial centres in just and sustainable development. Its ultimate aim is to develop a research project on how finance in those regional centres can contribute to addressing the climate crisis and economic inequality.
Long Abstract:
While New York and London have long dominated the global financial architecture (Cassis and Wojcik, 2018), cities from emerging Asia have taken prominent spots among the top ten international financial centres over the past decade (Lai 2012). However, other emerging world regions have not been able to catch up significantly. Latin American and African financial centres, despite being praised as regional ‘gateways’ (Cobbett 2014), have remained relatively insignificant globally. Given the economic challenges that societies across these two continents face – especially extreme inequality and fallout from the climate crisis – the question whether and how regional financial can play a constructive role in supporting just and sustainable socio-economic transformation is increasingly pressing.
Therefore, this workshop has a threefold aim. First, it will map the existing – if rather limited – literature on emerging financial centres in Africa and Latin America, identifying specificities, the nature of links to the dominant global financial centres and their current potential to contribute to or hinder just and sustainable development. Secondly, the workshop tackles the question how these financial centres might have to re-invent themselves to tackle tax evasion (in turn linked to inequality), the overreliance on extractive industries (which is unsustainable in the face of the climate crisis) and other major challenges to just socio-economic transformation. Thirdly, the ultimate aim of the workshop is to develop a research project on the future of African and Latin American financial centres by bringing together scholars across different social science disciplines working on these topics. Thus, the workshop provides an opportunity to identify relevant concepts and methodologies that are useful to tackle the questions raised here and crucially, how they can be utilised or potentially need to be re-invented for the African and Latin American regional contexts.
The workshop invites papers, research notes and other contributions, relevant to the described research agenda. The workshop will be organised as follows. Prior to the workshop, each participant will be asked to record a short video summary (5 minutes) of their contribution, explicitly addressing at least one of the three stated aims of the workshop. These recorded summaries will be the basis for the workshop discussion. Thus, there will be no paper presentations or presentations of contributions during the event. Instead, the workshop will be used for discussion to sketch out the agenda for a future research project and potential joint grant application.
My contribution will take stock of the literature that is available so far. The focus will be on African/LA financial centres roles in global financial structures, their impact on wealth inequality and their relationship to fossil fuels and mining extraction.
Why would you like to speak in this workshop?:
To contribute towards developing a future research agenda and grant application.
Building on Keynes' idea for an "International Clearing Union", we propose the creation of a special purpose global money form which allows financial elasticity towards green projects, alleviating finance constraints under today's predominant principle of neoliberal discipline.
Why would you like to speak in this workshop?:
While at least in theory high-income countries have sufficient financial leeway to promote sustainable transformation, other countries, e.g. in Latin America and Africa, do not. But even the former are trapped in a neoliberal corset that restricts their financial options. Our approach offers a way out of this dilemma based on the assumption that financial resources for green transformation are not limited per se but rather by the prevailing (global) politico-economic framework. The current international monetary system, in particular the need for U.S. dollar reserves or (expensive) access to dollar-denominated credit to finance imports necessary for sustainable investments, constitutes a major constraint on the path to green transition.
We propose a Green World (Central) Bank that would be allowed to create its own unit of account: the ecor - a supranational special purpose currency similar to the one Keynes called 'bancor'. The amount of ecors would adjust endogenously to the real demands for sustainable transformation and would not be limited by gold, the U.S. dollar, or any other reserves. Exporting countries would incur debt in ecors which they would only be able to spend within the system, obviating any risk of a run on ecors and systematically countering trade imbalances. As the system would allow countries, especially in the Global South, to finance sustainable investments, we believe, that it will be fruitful to discuss our proposition in the context of a conversation on the potential role of financial centers in Latin America and Africa in sustainable and just development.
I aim to bring an authentically African, scholastic view emphasising how "land grabs for quick cash" has become a normalised rhetoric, how a financial sector from a job creation perspective can be achieved, and how Africa can attain "moderator" status in a financial sector.
Why would you like to speak in this workshop?:
My proposal is titled "Africa's financial sector potential in correlation to its resource ownership." and explores 4 sections that I plan to discuss in greater detail. These sections include:
1. The current economic climate of neo-imperialism and resource exploitation.
2. How in the process of developing an African financial sector, adopting the Keynesian economic theory of socialising investment could increase public jobs whilst contributing to urbanisation.
3. The application of strategic fiscal policies, such as a higher tax on foreign transactions relating to the acquisition of African resources, as a means to benefit an African moderated market.
4. Finally, how making use of the recently implemented African Union free trade agreement could equate Africa's economic and service inequality and would thus establish good grounds for a financial sector.
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Dariusz Wojcik
Short Abstract:
This workshop explores the current and future role of African and Latin American financial centres in just and sustainable development. Its ultimate aim is to develop a research project on how finance in those regional centres can contribute to addressing the climate crisis and economic inequality.
Long Abstract:
While New York and London have long dominated the global financial architecture (Cassis and Wojcik, 2018), cities from emerging Asia have taken prominent spots among the top ten international financial centres over the past decade (Lai 2012). However, other emerging world regions have not been able to catch up significantly. Latin American and African financial centres, despite being praised as regional ‘gateways’ (Cobbett 2014), have remained relatively insignificant globally. Given the economic challenges that societies across these two continents face – especially extreme inequality and fallout from the climate crisis – the question whether and how regional financial can play a constructive role in supporting just and sustainable socio-economic transformation is increasingly pressing.
Therefore, this workshop has a threefold aim. First, it will map the existing – if rather limited – literature on emerging financial centres in Africa and Latin America, identifying specificities, the nature of links to the dominant global financial centres and their current potential to contribute to or hinder just and sustainable development. Secondly, the workshop tackles the question how these financial centres might have to re-invent themselves to tackle tax evasion (in turn linked to inequality), the overreliance on extractive industries (which is unsustainable in the face of the climate crisis) and other major challenges to just socio-economic transformation. Thirdly, the ultimate aim of the workshop is to develop a research project on the future of African and Latin American financial centres by bringing together scholars across different social science disciplines working on these topics. Thus, the workshop provides an opportunity to identify relevant concepts and methodologies that are useful to tackle the questions raised here and crucially, how they can be utilised or potentially need to be re-invented for the African and Latin American regional contexts.
The workshop invites papers, research notes and other contributions, relevant to the described research agenda. The workshop will be organised as follows. Prior to the workshop, each participant will be asked to record a short video summary (5 minutes) of their contribution, explicitly addressing at least one of the three stated aims of the workshop. These recorded summaries will be the basis for the workshop discussion. Thus, there will be no paper presentations or presentations of contributions during the event. Instead, the workshop will be used for discussion to sketch out the agenda for a future research project and potential joint grant application.
Accepted contributions:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 July, 2022, -