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ABSTRACT
Over the past 25 years or so, regional banks and related savings organizations have lost out to new forms of saving and investment. The recent successes and failures of financial intermediation and markets are noted, along with arguments to the effect we are in the midst of a global savings glut. The paper provides a stylized account of how new kinds of financial intermediaries have begun to fill the vacuum left by traditional intermediaries. Implications are drawn for European urban and regional growth in circumstances where financial intermediaries have sought to realize the value embedded in urban infrastructure.
摘要
金融中介、基础设施投资与区域增长. Area Development and Policy. 在过去25年左右的时间里，地区银行及相关储蓄机构已经被新的储蓄和投资形式所取代。本文指出了金融中介与市场近期的成功与失败，并提出我们正处于全球储蓄过剩之中的论点。本文探讨了新型金融中介如何开始填补传统中介留下的空缺。由此为在金融中介力图实现城镇基础设施嵌入价值情况下的欧洲城市和区域增长提出一些建议。]
RESUMEN
Intermediación financiera, inversión en infraestructura y crecimiento regional. Area Development and Policy. En los últimos veinticinco años aproximadamente, los bancos regionales y las organizaciones de ahorro relacionadas han salido perdiendo ante las nuevas formas de ahorro e inversión. Observamos los éxitos y fracasos recientes de la intermediación y los mercados financieros, además de los argumentos sobre el hecho de que estamos en medio de un atracón de ahorros internacional. En este artículo ofrecemos un relato estilizado de cómo los nuevos tipos de intermediarios financieros han empezado a llenar el vacío que habían dejado los intermediarios tradicionales. Mostramos qué repercusiones tiene para el crecimiento urbano y regional en Europa, en circunstancias en las que los intermediarios financieros han intentado aprovechar el valor arraigado en la infraestructura urbana.
АННОТАЦИЯ
Финансовое посредничество, инвестиции в инфраструктуру и региональный рост. Area Development and Policy. [Аннотация:] В течение последних двадцати пяти лет или около того, региональные банки и связанные с ними сберегательные организации проигрывают новым опциям сбережений и инвестиций. Рассматриваются последние успехи и неудачи финансового посредничества и рынков, наряду с аргументами в пользу того, что мы находимся в эпицентре глобального избытка сбережений. В статье представлен обобщенный рассказ о том, как новые виды финансовых посредников начали заполнять вакуум, оставленный традиционными посредниками. Обрисованы последствия для европейского городского и регионального роста в условиях, когда финансовые посредники стремятся использовать возможности инвестиций в городскую инфраструктуру.
PALABRAS CLAVE:
КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, 2017, at the invitation of the Regional Studies Association and the journal editors. It draws on research in collaboration with a number of scholars and institutions, notably Ashby Monk at Stanford. The author is grateful for the drafting and research assistance of Ailsa Allen and Micol Chiesa; the editorial advice of Sarah McGill and Selina Cohen; and the comments made on previous drafts by Mick Dunford, Phil O’Neill, Aniket Shah, Eric Sheppard, Sarah Levy, Dariusz Wójcik and an anonymous referee. None of the above should be held responsible for the views and opinions expressed herein.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Whether there is a savings glut and how long it might last is subject to debate (Wolf, Citation2014). Here, I follow Bernanke (Citation2005) and Summers (Citation2016) in arguing that the global surplus of savings is relative to economic opportunities and is a significant challenge for government policy. Sinn (Citation2014) is more circumspect, focusing on imbalances within Europe where he observes that some countries have a ‘surplus’ of saving whereas others do not.
2. When first established, it was widely believed that the eurozone would enable European cities and regions to bypass their nation-states to take advantage of the single market. If true through the years leading up to the global financial crisis, it is now apparent that the prospects for Europe’s cities and regions are closely related to the prospects of their nation-states.
3. Throughout, I focus on Anglo-American pension systems, suggesting they have played key roles in transforming global financial markets. Japan and China have both reformed their public pension systems from quasi pay-as-you-go (PAYG) schemes with investment programmes reliant on domestic and global financial markets. A case in point is the recent announcement by the US$291 billion Chinese National Council for Social Security Fund, which, in an attempt to seek higher returns, is about to allocate significant tranches of assets to foreign equity investment managers (Yujie Gan, personal communication).
4. Versions of this figure are widely used in economic policy and debate because it represents a fundamental shift in long-term expectations and the effectiveness of conventional monetary policy. See also Eichengreen’s commentary of 11 April 2014 found at www.project-syndicate.org.
5. Krugman’s argument matches John Maynard Keynes’s (Keynes, Citation1936) contention that economic depressions are characterized, in part, by liquidity traps – situations where savers hoard rather than spend their assets. Likewise, Sinn (2014, pp. 136–139) suggests that ‘the eurozone is close to a liquidity trap, i.e. a situation where the interest rates are already close to zero and monetary policy has lost its effectiveness’.
6. The youth unemployment rate is the number of unemployed 15–24-year-olds expressed as a percentage of the youth labour force. Unemployed people are those who fulfil three conditions: they are without work during the reference week; are available to start work within the next two weeks; and have been actively seeking work for the past four weeks. The survey covers the resident population in private households (see https://data.oecd.org/unemp/long-term-unemployment-rate.htm).