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Outputs (47)

Playful finance: Gamification and intermediation in FinTech economies (2023)
Journal Article
Lai, K. P., & Langley, P. (2024). Playful finance: Gamification and intermediation in FinTech economies. Geoforum, 151, Article 103848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103848

This paper examines how digital gamification techniques, which incorporate video gaming elements (rather than full-fledged games) into apps, are reshaping the logics and practices of intermediation that are core to FinTech economies. First, we argue... Read More about Playful finance: Gamification and intermediation in FinTech economies.

FinTech platform regulation: Regulating with/against platforms in the United Kingdom and China (2023)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2023). FinTech platform regulation: Regulating with/against platforms in the United Kingdom and China. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 16(2), 257–268. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad005

This paper develops case studies of the United Kingdom (UK) and China to analyse divergent national financial regulatory approaches to FinTech as a novel political economy of platforms. Regulating with platforms is core to the approach taken in the U... Read More about FinTech platform regulation: Regulating with/against platforms in the United Kingdom and China.

Nigel Dodd: An appreciation (2023)
Journal Article
Langley, P., Ashenden, S., Barry, A., Bear, L., Kelly, A., McGoey, L. J., …Weszkalnys, G. (2023). Nigel Dodd: An appreciation. Economy and Society, 52(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2023.2157584

Professor Nigel Dodd was a long-standing and much-loved member of the Editorial Board of Economy and Society. He sadly passed away in August 2022. In this short piece, we express our heartfelt gratitude for Nigel’s contributions to the journal and br... Read More about Nigel Dodd: An appreciation.

Neo-colonial credit: FinTech platforms in Africa (2022)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2022). Neo-colonial credit: FinTech platforms in Africa. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(4), 401-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2022.2028652

This paper makes a three-fold contribution to social science research into FinTech in Africa. First, we build on existing research into mobile payments to show how FinTech providers offer unsecured short-term credit products via mobile wallets. Secon... Read More about Neo-colonial credit: FinTech platforms in Africa.

FinTech in Africa: An Editorial Introduction (2022)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Rodima-Taylor, D. (2022). FinTech in Africa: An Editorial Introduction. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(4), 387-400. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2022.2092193

Applications of digital technologies to retail money and finance have gathered pace across the globe over the last decade or so, constituting novel ‘FinTech’ economies. Although FinTech is registering across critical social scientific research, insuf... Read More about FinTech in Africa: An Editorial Introduction.

Interrogating ‘urban social innovation’: relationality and urban change in Berlin (2021)
Journal Article
McFarlane, C., Langley, P., Lewis, S., Painter, J., & Vradis, A. (2023). Interrogating ‘urban social innovation’: relationality and urban change in Berlin. Urban Geography, 44(2), 337-357. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.2003586

The relationship between the city and ‘innovation’ is long and varied, but in recent years there has been a new focus on the potential of innovation to catalyse economic, social, and environmental change. This has led to a debate around whether and h... Read More about Interrogating ‘urban social innovation’: relationality and urban change in Berlin.

Decarbonizing capital: Investment, divestment and the qualification of carbon assets (2021)
Journal Article
Langley, P., Bridge, G., Bulkeley, H., & van Veelen, B. (2021). Decarbonizing capital: Investment, divestment and the qualification of carbon assets. Economy and Society, 50(3), 494-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1860335

rivate investment capital is now widely regarded as strategically significant to the governance of climate change. A dedicated and dynamic carbon finance sector has emerged that features techniques and practices for decarbonizing capital, facilitatin... Read More about Decarbonizing capital: Investment, divestment and the qualification of carbon assets.

Economy and society in COVID times (2021)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2021). Economy and society in COVID times. Economy and Society, 50(2), 149-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1900653

The Editorial Board of Economy and Society has assembled a virtual collection of 12 free access papers to mark a very significant anniversary – Volume 50 of the journal is being published during 2021. This overview explains the rationale for the coll... Read More about Economy and society in COVID times.

Impact investors: The ethical financialization of development, society and nature (2020)
Book Chapter
Langley, P. (2021). Impact investors: The ethical financialization of development, society and nature. In J. Knox-Hayes, & D. Wojcik (Eds.), Routledge handbook of financial geography. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351119061

With increasing numbers of investors rejecting the notion that they face a binary choice between investing for maximum risk-adjusted returns or donating for social purpose, the impact investment market is at a significant turning point as it enters t... Read More about Impact investors: The ethical financialization of development, society and nature.

Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism (2020)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2021). Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism. Review of International Political Economy, 28(2), 382-393. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1830828

In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2007–09, political economists have typically identified and interrogated speculative logics and credit-debt relations as the markers of financialized capitalism. This paper argues that assets, and the con... Read More about Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism.

Central banks: Climate governors of last resort? (2020)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Morris, J. H. (2020). Central banks: Climate governors of last resort?. Environment and Planning A, 52(8), 1471-1479. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x20951809

The global and regional leadership of central banks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened public and political debates over their role in the governance of an arguably more fundamental planetary crisis: the climate crisis. Strategically... Read More about Central banks: Climate governors of last resort?.

Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin (2020)
Journal Article
Langley, P., Lewis, S., McFarlane, C., Painter, J., & Vradis, A. (2020). Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin. Geoforum, 115, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.014

Situated at the intersection of urban and economic geography, this paper develops and illustrates a three-step research agenda to further critical understanding of relations between crowdfunding and cities. First, we explore how crowdfunding is enrol... Read More about Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin.

The platform political economy of FinTech: Reintermediation, consolidation and capitalisation (2020)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2021). The platform political economy of FinTech: Reintermediation, consolidation and capitalisation. New Political Economy, 26(3), 376-388. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2020.1766432

‘FinTech’ is the digital sector of retail money and finance widely proclaimed to be transforming banking in the global North and ‘banking the unbanked’ in the global South. This paper develops a perspective for critically understanding FinTech as a p... Read More about The platform political economy of FinTech: Reintermediation, consolidation and capitalisation.

The financialization of life (2020)
Book Chapter
Langley, P. (2020). The financialization of life. In P. Mader, D. Mertens, & N. van der Zwan (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of financialization. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315142876-6

The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate upon financialization research that draws on the post-structural theorizations of contemporary power relations provided by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. The intertwined theoretical projects of Foucaul... Read More about The financialization of life.

Affective Life and Cultural Economy: Payday Loans and the Everyday Space-Times of Credit-Debt in the UK (2019)
Journal Article
Anderson, B., Langley, P., Ash, J., & Gordon, R. (2020). Affective Life and Cultural Economy: Payday Loans and the Everyday Space-Times of Credit-Debt in the UK. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(2), 420-433. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12355

Analysing the affective geographies of digitally mediated payday loans in the UK, this paper advocates and exemplifies an approach to cultural economy that focuses on how economic worlds are affectively animated and lived. Supplementing the two versi... Read More about Affective Life and Cultural Economy: Payday Loans and the Everyday Space-Times of Credit-Debt in the UK.

Pluralizing and Problematizing Carbon Finance (2019)
Journal Article
Bridge, G., Bulkeley, H., Langley, P., & van Veelen, B. (2020). Pluralizing and Problematizing Carbon Finance. Progress in Human Geography, 44(4), 724-742. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132519856260

Growing emphasis on finance as key to decarbonization requires social science research that critically attends to the emergent and diverse forms taken by carbon finance. First, we pluralize research into carbon finance, building on existing work to i... Read More about Pluralizing and Problematizing Carbon Finance.

Indebted life and money culture: Payday lending in the United Kingdom (2019)
Journal Article
Langley, P., Anderson, B., Ash, J., & Gordon, R. (2019). Indebted life and money culture: Payday lending in the United Kingdom. Economy and Society, 48(1), 30-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2018.1554371

Critical social scientific research holds that credit–debt is a principal economic and governing relation in contemporary economy and society, but largely neglects money’s role in indebted life. Drawing on qualitative research in the payday loan mark... Read More about Indebted life and money culture: Payday lending in the United Kingdom.

Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom (2018)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2018). Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom. Economic Anthropology, 5(2), 172-184. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12115

This article contributes to critical social scientific understanding of the significance of state power to the furtherance of the financialization of socioeconomic life. Drawing on the poststructural theories of power of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Fou... Read More about Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom.

Digital Interface Design and Power: Friction, Threshold, Transition (2018)
Journal Article
Ash, J., Anderson, B., Gordon, R., & Langley, P. (2018). Digital Interface Design and Power: Friction, Threshold, Transition. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(3), 1136-1153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775818767426

This paper draws upon the example of High-Cost Short-Term Credit products accessed via digital interfaces and devices to examine practices of interface design and the operation of digitally mediated power. Utilising interviews with High-Cost Short-Te... Read More about Digital Interface Design and Power: Friction, Threshold, Transition.

The folds of social finance: Making markets, remaking the social (2018)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2020). The folds of social finance: Making markets, remaking the social. Environment and Planning A, 52(1), 130-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x17752682

The global financial crisis acted as a spur to ‘social finance’, a loose grouping of markets demarcated on the grounds of their ostensible social purpose. This article’s critical analysis of social finance contributes to cultural economy research int... Read More about The folds of social finance: Making markets, remaking the social.

Platform Capitalism: The Intermediation and Capitalization of Digital Economic Circulation (2017)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Platform Capitalism: The Intermediation and Capitalization of Digital Economic Circulation. Finance and Society, 3(1), 11-31. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v3i1.1936

A new form of digital economic circulation has emerged, wherein ideas, knowledge, labour and use rights for otherwise idle assets move between geographically distributed but connected and interactive online communities. Such circulation is apparent a... Read More about Platform Capitalism: The Intermediation and Capitalization of Digital Economic Circulation.

Unit, Vibration, Tone: A Post-Phenomenological Method for Researching Digital Interfaces (2017)
Journal Article
Ash, J., Anderson, B., Gordon, R., & Langley, P. (2018). Unit, Vibration, Tone: A Post-Phenomenological Method for Researching Digital Interfaces. cultural geographies, 25(1), 165-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474017726556

Digital interfaces, in the form of websites, mobile apps and other platforms, now mediate user experiences with a variety of economic, cultural and political services and products. To study these digital mediations, researchers have to date followed... Read More about Unit, Vibration, Tone: A Post-Phenomenological Method for Researching Digital Interfaces.

Financial flows: Spatial imaginaries of speculative circulations (2017)
Book Chapter
Langley, P. (2017). Financial flows: Spatial imaginaries of speculative circulations. In B. Christophers, A. Leyshon, & G. Mann (Eds.), Money and finance after the crisis : critical thinking for uncertain times (69-90). John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119051374.ch3

Viewed from the vantage points provided by political economy and a range of allied critical theories, a spatiality of circulation is a defining feature of capitalist money and finance. For financial markets in particular, it is the capacity to commod... Read More about Financial flows: Spatial imaginaries of speculative circulations.

Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding (2017)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding. Environment and Planning A, 49(5), 1019-1039. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16687556

‘Crowdfunding’ is a method of raising money and finance to capitalize projects of various kinds. Drawing on the networking capabilities of the internet and software platforms, those seeking project funding appeal to potentially diverse audiences who... Read More about Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding in the United Kingdom: A cultural economy (2016)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2016). Crowdfunding in the United Kingdom: A cultural economy. Economic Geography, 92(3), 301-321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2015.1133233

Crowdfunding is a digital economy in which funds provided by large numbers of individuals (the crowd) are aggregated and distributed through online platforms to a range of actors and institutions. In the United Kingdom, crowdfunding is a particularly... Read More about Crowdfunding in the United Kingdom: A cultural economy.

Liquidity Lost: The Governance of the Global Financial Crisis (2014)
Book
Langley, P. (2014). Liquidity Lost: The Governance of the Global Financial Crisis. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199683789.001.0001

•Extensive empirical coverage of the financial crisis management interventions in US and UK in 2007 and 2011 •Provides an innovative contribution to conceptual debates in cultural economy and social studies of finance. •A multidisciplinary source of... Read More about Liquidity Lost: The Governance of the Global Financial Crisis.

Equipping entrepreneurs: consuming credit and credit scores (2014)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2014). Equipping entrepreneurs: consuming credit and credit scores. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 17(5), 448-467. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2013.849592

On-line products that make an individual's credit score an object of consumption and equip credit consumers with the capacity to improve their score are shown to exemplify two sets of dynamic tendencies to change in mass market consumer credit. First... Read More about Equipping entrepreneurs: consuming credit and credit scores.

Anticipating uncertainty, reviving risk? On the stress testing of finance in crisis (2013)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2013). Anticipating uncertainty, reviving risk? On the stress testing of finance in crisis. Economy and Society, 42(1), 51-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2012.686719

Widely regarded as a watershed moment in the governance of the present global financial crisis, the US Treasury's Supervisory Capital Assessment Program (SCAP) of spring 2009 undertook to ‘stress test’ the solvency of the largest American banks by pr... Read More about Anticipating uncertainty, reviving risk? On the stress testing of finance in crisis.

Toxic assets, turbulence and biopolitical security: Governing the crisis of global financial circulation (2013)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2013). Toxic assets, turbulence and biopolitical security: Governing the crisis of global financial circulation. Security Dialogue, 44(2), 111-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010613479425

Focusing on a highly significant governmental intervention in the global financial market crisis – the US Treasury Department’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) of autumn 2008 – this article makes a threefold contribution to the growing literatu... Read More about Toxic assets, turbulence and biopolitical security: Governing the crisis of global financial circulation.

Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: Financialisation and the Management of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis (2012)
Journal Article
Chima, O., & Langley, P. (2012). Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: Financialisation and the Management of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. Global Society, 26(4), 409-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2012.710595

The subprime mortgage debacle in the USA and the subsequent global credit crunch provoked a wide range of crisis management responses in different national settings. Such interventions are typically figured as the sovereign state coming to the rescue... Read More about Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: Financialisation and the Management of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.

Remaking retirement investors: behavioural economics and occupational pension funds in the UK and USA (2012)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leaver, A. (2012). Remaking retirement investors: behavioural economics and occupational pension funds in the UK and USA. Journal of Cultural Economy, 5(4), 473-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.691893

Summoned up within the defined-contribution (DC) plans that now predominate in the UK and USA, the financial subject of the retirement investor is identified by behavioural economics as the crucial problem to be solved in present-day occupational pen... Read More about Remaking retirement investors: behavioural economics and occupational pension funds in the UK and USA.

Guest editors' introduction - Financial subjects: culture and materiality (2012)
Journal Article
Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2012). Guest editors' introduction - Financial subjects: culture and materiality. Journal of Cultural Economy, 5(4), 369-373. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.703146

The social identity of professional financiers is a relatively long-standing concern of social scientists. Consider, for example, the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ of the City of London’s investment banks (Augar 2000; Cain & Hopkins 1986, 1987), and the... Read More about Guest editors' introduction - Financial subjects: culture and materiality.

The ethical investor and embodied economies. (2010)
Book Chapter
Langley, P. (2010). The ethical investor and embodied economies. In R. Abdelal, M. Blyth, & C. Parson (Eds.), Constructing the International Economy. Cornell University Press

The performance of liquidity in the subprime mortgage crisis (2010)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2010). The performance of liquidity in the subprime mortgage crisis. New Political Economy, 15(1), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563460903553624

‘Liquidity’ is highly significant to representations of the crisis that gripped financial markets from the summer of 2007. A wide-ranging ‘liquidity crisis’ is typically traced to the collapse of prices in markets for assets backed by or derived from... Read More about The performance of liquidity in the subprime mortgage crisis.

Consumer credit, self-discipline, and risk management. (2009)
Book Chapter
Langley, P. (2009). Consumer credit, self-discipline, and risk management. In G. Clark, A. Dixon, & A. Monk (Eds.), Managing Financial Risks: From Global to Local (280-300). Oxford University Press

Debt, discipline and government: Foreclosure and forbearance in the subprime mortgage crisis (2009)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2009). Debt, discipline and government: Foreclosure and forbearance in the subprime mortgage crisis. Environment and Planning A, 41(6), 1404-1419. https://doi.org/10.1068/a41322

The extensive punishment of debtors through foreclosure, and federal and state support for forbearance by lenders and loan servicers, are key features of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States of America. From a Foucauldian perspective, fo... Read More about Debt, discipline and government: Foreclosure and forbearance in the subprime mortgage crisis.

Sub-prime mortgage lending: A cultural economy (2008)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2008). Sub-prime mortgage lending: A cultural economy. Economy and Society, 37(4), 469-494. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140802357893

Developing cultural economists’ concerns with the assembly of agency in financial markets, agency in sub-prime mortgage lending in the United States is shown to have been made up through calculative devices of risk. Credit reporting and scoring provi... Read More about Sub-prime mortgage lending: A cultural economy.

Financialization and the consumer credit boom (2008)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2008). Financialization and the consumer credit boom. Competition & Change, 12(2), 133-147. https://doi.org/10.1179/102452908x289794

Viewed in retrospect, the concept of 'financialization' highlights the massive growth in the issue and trading of ownership claims on all manner of instruments. It has also opened the way for research linking these changes in the financial markets to... Read More about Financialization and the consumer credit boom.

Securitising suburbia: The transformation of Anglo-American mortgage finance (2006)
Journal Article
Langley, P. (2006). Securitising suburbia: The transformation of Anglo-American mortgage finance. Competition & Change, 10(3), 283-299. https://doi.org/10.1179/102452906x114384

Informed by and contributing to approaches to finance that draw on Foucault and actor-network theory, the paper focuses on the contemporary transformation of Anglo-American mortgage finance. This transformation is understood to entail the lengthening... Read More about Securitising suburbia: The transformation of Anglo-American mortgage finance.