Toby Carroll - Financialisation and Development in Asia

Financialisation and Development in Asia

Multilateral development agencies have increasingly focused on underdeveloped Asian countries as potential new sites for financial capital. Often referred to as emerging markets, these economies are seen as ripe for private sector investment and, at the same time, in need of foreign capital to support rapid industrialisation, modernisation and poverty reduction. This confluence of interests suggests a means for quickly closing the development gap, primarily through mobilising regulatory, institutional and governance reforms designed to reduce barriers to foreign capital, institutional inefficiencies and risks to investment, capital repatriation and market operation. Development agencies thus now encourage the construction of enabling environments to support market driven development through processes variously identified as financialisation, centring on the role of the market and private capital. While the state itself has historically occupied a central place in economic development, new financialised modes of development are increasingly marginalising the state, its influence in the economy and thus its ability to manage developmental outcomes. In this volume a collection of leading authors critically assess these developments, highlighting the emergence of financialised modes of development and their contested and often problematic nature. Drawing upon a series of case studies, the contributors explore not just the increasing use of financialised development initiatives, but assess critically their implications in terms of the emergent risks, costs and inequalities that often accompany them.

This book was originally published as a special issue of the Asian Studies Review.

Toby Carroll is Associate Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong. His research concentrates on the political economy of development, with a particular geographical focus on Asia. He has published in journals such as Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Studies Review, Globalizations, Development and Change, Pacific Review and Antipode, and much of his work has been translated into Indonesian. He is the author of Delusions of Development: the World Bank and the post-Washington Consensus in Southeast Asia (Palgrave MacMillan) and co-editor (with Darryl Jarvis) of The Politics of Marketising Asia (Palgrave MacMillan, 2014). He has edited or co-edited numerous journal special issues (including for Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Studies Review and Globalizations). He also co-edits (with Darryl Jarvis, Paul Cammack and M. Ramesh) the Palgrave book series, Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy. He is a co-editor of Journal of Contemporary Asia and a thematic editor for Asian Studies Review (Political Economy and International Politics).

Darryl S.L. Jarvis is Professor and Associate Dean, Faculty of Liberal Studies and Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. His research interests focus on international and political risk, comparative public policy, regulation, infrastructure, and the political economy of investment into Asia. His publications include (co-edited with Toby Carroll) The Politics of Marketising Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); (with Anthony Welch) ASEAN Industries and the Challenge from China (Palgrave Macmillan); (with Ed Araral, M. Ramesh and Wu Xun) Infrastructure Regulation: What Works, Why, and How do we Know? Lessons from Asia and Beyond (World Scientific); Handbook of International Business Risk: The Asia Pacific (Cambridge University Press); International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline (University of South Carolina Press); (with R.M. Crawford) International Relations. Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought (State University of New York Press); and Post-modernism and its Critics: International Relations and the Third Debate (Greenwood/Praeger). He has also contributed articles to Globalizations, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Studies Review, Journal of Asian Public Policy, European Journal of Law and Technology, Regulation & Governance, International Relations, Technology in Society, Energy, Politics and Society, Journal of International Relations and Development, Asian Survey, Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations, Contemporary Politics, The Australian Journal of International Affairs, as well as authored a series of invited papers.

Financialisation and Development in Asia

Edited by

Toby Carroll and Darryl S.L. Jarvis

First published 2015

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2015 Asian Studies Association of Australia

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 13: 978-1-138-90142-1

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Publishers Note

The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen during the conversion of this book from journal articles to book chapters, namely the possible inclusion of journal terminology.

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.

Contents

The chapters in this book were originally published in Asian Studies Review, volume 38, issue 4 (December 2014). When citing this material, please use the original page numbering for each article, as follows:

Introduction: Financialisation and Development in Asia under Late Capitalism

Toby Carroll and Darryl S.L. Jarvis

Asian Studies Review, volume 38, issue 4 (December 2014) pp. 533543

Global Politics of Microfinancing Poverty in Asia: The Case of Bangladesh Unpacked

Heloise Weber

Asian Studies Review, volume 38, issue 4 (December 2014) pp. 544563

Innovation and the Entrepreneurial State in Asia: Mechanisms of Bond Market Development

Lena Rethel and Timothy J. Sinclair