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Full-Text Articles in Economics
‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando
‘Capitalism A Nuh’ Wi Frien’. The Formatting Of Farming Into An Asset, From Financial Speculation To International Aid, Luigi Russi, Tomaso Ferrando
Luigi Russi
This paper deciphers the formatting of farming into an asset by tracking the modalities by which financial calculation is enabled across different sites of agency. The first focus of our analysis are commodity futures markets, which have witnessed a double spike in prices in 2008 and in 2012. In the paper, we look at these hikes as the outcome of endogenous dynamics, caused by the changing makeup of market participants after 2000, which turned futures markets into resources for hedging commodity index-linked derivative products. We subsequently analyse the increasing reliance on financial actors placed by public development agencies that channel …
Heterodox Challenges To Consumption-Oriented Models Of Legislation, Luigi Russi, John Haskell
Heterodox Challenges To Consumption-Oriented Models Of Legislation, Luigi Russi, John Haskell
Luigi Russi
Consumption-oriented models of governance dominate the contemporary global legal architecture. The financial crisis beginning in 2008, however, poses fundamental questions about the future viability of these approaches to economics and law. This paper attempts to first, evaluate consumptionÕs salient historical development and themes from the post- World War II era to more recent legislative innovation, and second, introduce seven heterodox vignettes that challenge the hegemony of consumption in legislative policy. The paper concludes with some brief reflections upon potential opportunities and limitations of these heterodox traditions within future scholarship and policy addressing the interplay of law and consumption in global …
Hungry Capital: The Financialization Of Food, Luigi Russi
Hungry Capital: The Financialization Of Food, Luigi Russi
Luigi Russi
Over the past thirty years, the ability of global finance to affect aspects of everyday life has been increasing at an unprecedented rate. The world of food bears vivid testimony to this tendency, through the scars opened by the 2008 world food price crisis, the iron fist of retailing giants that occupy the supply chain and the unsustainable ecological footprint left behind by global production networks. Hungry Capital offers a rigorous analysis of the influence that financial imperatives exert on the food economy at different levels: from the direct use of edible commodities as an object of speculation to the …
A Second Look At The 2007-08 Food Price Crisis: Considering The Impact Of Endogenous Dynamics On Food Prices, Luigi Russi
A Second Look At The 2007-08 Food Price Crisis: Considering The Impact Of Endogenous Dynamics On Food Prices, Luigi Russi
Luigi Russi
This paper offers an alternative to the conventional explanation of the 2007-08 food price crisis in terms of escalating demand or dwindling supply. Instead, its focus is on the legal institutional structure of commodity futures markets, which has witnessed a drastic alteration in the role of speculators. These have transformed from “market makers” (that keep commodity futures markets liquid by arbitraging on price fluctuations) to “market breakers”. Index speculation, in particular, has had the effect of muddling information about market “fundamentals” because of the need – brought about by commodity index swaps – for swap dealers to hedge the fluctuations …