Juan Pablo Painceira

Eurozone crisis: beggar thyself and thy neighbour

The sovereign debt crisis that broke out in Greece at the end of 2009 is fundamentally due to the precarious integration of peripheral countries in the eurozone. Its immediate causes, however, lie with the crisis of 2007–2009. Speculative mortgage lending by US financial institutions and trading of resultant derivative securities by international banks created a vast bubble in 2001–2007, leading to crisis and recession. State provision of liquidity and capital in 2008–2009 rescued the banks, while state expenditure prevented a worsening of the recession. The result in the eurozone was a sovereign debt crisis, exacerbated by the structural weaknesses of monetary union.

Subordinated Financial Integration and Financialisation in Emerging Capitalist Economies: The Brazilian Experience

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the recent changes in financial practices and relations in emerging capitalist economies (ECEs) using the example of Brazil. It argues that in ECEs these financial transformations, akin to the financialisation phenomena observed in Core Capitalist Economies (CCEs), are fundamentally shaped by their subordinated integration into a financialised and structured world economy. To analyse this subordinated financialisation, the paper draws on the framework of international currency hierarchies. It shows by means of two specific processes how the existence of a hierarchic international monetary system has changed the financial behaviour of domestic economic agents, and with it the structure of the financial system. The first process highlights the phenomenon of reserve accumulation and the changing behaviour of domestic banks. The second points to ECEs’ sustained external vulnerability and its impact on the operations of Brazilian non-financial corporations. The paper also shows that not only were these financial transformations shaped by ECEs’ subordinated financial integration, but also that it was these financialisation tendencies themselves which contributed to cementing existing hierarchies and further deepened existing asymmetries between ECEs and CCEs.