Given the relative scarcity of capital and the small volume of savings in most African economies at independence, the establishment of stock exchanges and their regulation showed that several countries considered them as strategic financial intermediaries for channelling capital to their national, and even regional, economies. This article examines the Lagos Stock Exchange’s formative years as a political process of Nigeria’s decolonisation and the First Republic. Originally incorporated as a private limited liability company on 15 September 1960, and as the first stock exchange in West Africa and the region’s largest economy, the new financial intermediary defined the relationship between the post-independence state and the growing capital market during a period of considerable political and economic changes. The role of the post-independence state and state-owned enterprises in facilitating the trade on the Lagos Stock Exchange broadens the analytical scope of this investigation to identify the sources of Nigeria’s development finance. While significant efforts were taken to grow private individual participation in the share trade and ownership, the early years of the Lagos Stock Exchange were ultimately marked by the dominance of institutional investors such as state-owned enterprises and private commercial banks.

De nombreux objets et espaces urbains situés dans les métropoles deviennent des actifs financiers. Bureaux, centres commerciaux, résidences étudiantes, grands équipements sont acquis par des fonds d’investissement et des sociétés cotées qui capitalisent sur les flux de revenus futurs générés par l’usage de ces bâtiments par des entreprises et des habitants. Le redéveloppement urbain à travers l’aménagement de quartiers mixtes se retrouve, par l’entremise des circuits de financement des marchés immobiliers, branché sur les marchés financiers. La thèse se propose d’analyser cette financiarisation du capitalisme urbain à partir de l’articulation des politiques des gouvernements urbains et des stratégies financières des gestionnaires d’actifs immobiliers. Les rapports de pouvoir entre ces deux acteurs et leurs effets socio-spatiaux et matériels sont interrogés à partir d’une comparaison de deux grands projets d’aménagements situés dans le Grand Paris et le Grand Lyon. C’est dans cette perspective que l’enquête porte sur les projets opérationnels, mais aussi sur les salons immobiliers où ils sont présentés, et les stratégies métropolitaines.La recherche montre qu’en dépit d’orientations politiques différentes, la construction d’immobilier tertiaire standardisé, polarisé, et réservé à quelques grandes entreprises conditionne le redéveloppement urbain dans les deux cas. Ces conditions correspondent aux standards d’investissement sélectifs des gestionnaires d’actifs, que les conseils en immobiliers et les promoteurs relayent auprès des gouvernements urbains. Elles résultent de processus dont la conflictualité varie en fonction des agendas locaux. Après d’intenses négociations menées par les promoteurs, la municipalité de Saint-Ouen a renoncé à certains principes structurants du projet des Docks. L’aménagement du Carré de Soie s’est au contraire traduit par un consensus entre promoteurs et le Grand Lyon autour de la réalisation d’un pôle tertiaire. Deux configurations locales sont avancées pour interpréter ce résultat comparatif propice à la financiarisation. La faiblesse de la régulation de la production de bureaux à l’échelle de la métropole parisienne conduit à des négociations localisées au sein du projet, où les objectifs municipaux sont contraints par la hiérarchisation des priorités politiques, les modalités de financement de l’aménagement et la matérialité du foncier. Dans la métropole lyonnaise, l’institutionnalisation d’une politique de l’offre immobilière portée par l’exécutif et les services de développement économique du Grand Lyon organise la circulation des standards d’investissement à l’échelle de l’agglomération et renforce leur poids sur l’aménagement.À partir de ces résultats, la thèse propose une lecture d’économie politique urbaine de la financiarisation de l’environnement urbain alternative à la théorie marxienne, en insistant sur le rôle des gestionnaires d’actifs et soulignant ses médiations. Elle contribue aux théories du pouvoir urbain en montrant le poids limité des agendas locaux sur les effets sélectifs de la financiarisation, et en discutant la formation, à certaines conditions, d’une coalition de croissance financiarisée / Myriads of urban objects and spaces located in city-regions have turned into financial assets. Office buildings, shopping malls, student dwellings, and large utilities are purchased by investment funds and listed property companies, which seek to capitalise on the future income streams based on their use by firms and people. Urban redevelopment and financial markets are thus intertwined through the financing circuits of property markets. By analysing the interactions between the financial strategies of real estate asset managers and the urban development policies of city governments, the thesis sets out to analyse this financialisation of urban capitalism. In order to question their power relationships and their socio-spatial and material outcomes, it develops a comparison between two large-scale, mixed-use urban redevelopment projects located in the Greater Paris and Greater Lyon areas. The comparison is based on the investigation of the projects, commercial real estate fairs where they are showcased to investors, and metropolitan strategies.Despite different local agendas, both projects leads to the production of standardised and spatially clustered commercial real estate buildings whose access is limited to a restricted set of tenants, thus strongly constraining urban redevelopment policies. Such characteristics correspond to the selective expectations of asset managers, whose investment standards are circulated by real estate brokers and developers to city governments. They result from different processes, which involve more or less conflicts according to local agendas. Faced with intense opposition from developers, the city of Saint-Ouen had to back on several key goals of the project, whereas the redevelopment of the Carre de Soie was undertaken on the basis of a strong consensus between local developers and the Greater Lyon metropolitan authority. In order to account for these differences, the thesis identifies two local configurations conducive of financialisation. In Saint-Ouen’s Docklands case, weak regulation at the city-region scale between cities competing to attract businesses contributes to localised power relationships; their results depend in turn from the combination between priority-setting, redevelopment financing and land materiality. In the Carre de Soie case, the institutionalisation of a property-led policy carried out by the metropolitan executive and its economic development staff has organised the circulation of investment standards at the city-region scale, thereby enhancing their impact on urban redevelopment.Based on these results, the thesis offers an urban political economy of the financialisation of urban production which, compared to Marxian theory, highlights the role of real estate asset managers and pays attention to the mediations of such a process. It also contributes to theories of urban power by emphasising the limited explanatory power of local agendas on the selective effects of financialisation. Eventually, it discusses how, under specific circumstances, an urban financialised coalition emerges

Shaoul et al. (2012) state that the accounting, scrutiny and oversight of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) remain areas of concern. Also, there have been calls for a more socio-technical and multidisciplinary approach to accounting and governance studies (Broadbent, 2012; Broadbent and Guthrie 2008), especially in relation to the empirical study of PPPs (Hodge et al., 2010). This thesis responds to these calls in part by drawing on Giddens’ structuration theory to examine the financial accountability and governance concerns that are created in PPP joint venture structures. The empirical work focuses on the health sector, which is identified as one of the sectors inundated by PPP activities, particularly in the UK (Treasury, 2012; Whitfield, 2010). It adopts a case study approach, based on qualitative methodology, which involves documentary analysis of secondary data and interviews in relation to two PPP schemes under the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) scheme in the UK’s health sector.The thesis investigates: the extent to which the corporate structures of the LIFT scheme do complicate financial accountability and governance including external scrutiny; the extent to which the LIFT scheme does enhance partnership working between the public and private sector partners; the structures in financial accountability and governance in the LIFT scheme; the human agents that provide agency in financial accountability and governance in the LIFT scheme and; whether and in what ways structures and human agency in financial accountability and governance interact in the LIFT scheme and what the implications are.The thesis finds firstly that the complex corporate structure of the LIFT scheme is very complicated and the joint venture mechanism cannot be relied upon to deliver transparency of reporting. Secondly, as limited companies, all financial reporting follows private sector accounting regulations and Company Law and there is minimal disclosure in terms of information available to the general public. This is worsened by lack of information sharing between partners as evidenced in one case study group. Thirdly, there was considerable inconsistency in the reporting due to multiplicity of interpretive schemas between the two case study groups. Fourthly, there was considerable change in the reporting due both to changes in accounting regulations and changes in organisational structure and interpretive schemas throughout the period. Fifthly, there is lack of continuity of public sector oversight and monitoring as the public sector, in practice, restricts its activities to pre-operational phase and limited oversight after construction phases. Moreover, partnership working is very difficult in the context of profit seeking under the LIFT structure. Partnership working and success of the LIFT scheme may depend on trust, key personalities working together as well as leadership. From the structuration perspective, the study finds structural contradictions and conflicts of interests in financial accountability and governance practices. Therefore, transparency, public accountability, oversight and scrutiny are necessarily undermined and, policy makers should pay attention to not only the private sector technologies but also the manner in which they are used to benefit finance capital.

Housing debts have become fuel for the global economy, having been turned into tradable commodities on the financial markets. However, housing debts also have a profound relevance in the everyday life of those who have become indebted, enabling the dream of homeownership, but also leading to foreclosures and evictions. This thesis aims to take a rather under-researched perspective on formal and informal housing debts (i.e., mortgages and familial loans) by exploring the role of public and domestic discourses in, what is termed, the financialisation of housing. The financialisation of housing refers to the process of real estate being turned into assets and commodities and to the spread of individualised financial products being used to secure housing. The thesis uses the Czech Republic as a case through which to examine how discourse may enable this transition and how contribute to a specific financial governmentality. The thesis raises questions: How is it possible that mortgages come to be perceived as a normal and natural solution to housing issues? How do they become part of the debtors' lives through certain discourses? These questions are explored through an innovative framework of layered performativity, encompassing rhetoric, sociotechnical devices, and references to practices that reveal three main...

The purpose of this study is to develop an indebtedness framework that explains the effects of financialisation and household indebtedness on economic development. For this purpose, the study empirically examines annual South African data covering the years 1990-2017 to look at the effect of financialisation before and after the 2007/08 financial crisis. South Africa adopted an inflation targeting monetary policy regime in the 1990s before the global economic crisis in response to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Examining data from 1990-2017 made it possible to look at the effects of financial deregulation policies that were introduced post the 2007-08 financial meltdown. The study addressed three objectives. The first objective sought to establish the extent of financialisation in the South African economy pre and post the 2008 financial crisis. To achieve this objective, annual time series data from 1990-2017 on financialisation variables was split into two, before and after the financial crisis. Graphical presentations of the four financialisation variables (financial deregulation, foreign financial inflows, asset price volatility, and shift to market-based finance) showed that there was a difference in financialisation before and after the 2008 financial crisis. Analysis of variance showed that there is a statistically significant difference between the foreign financial inflows’ series before and after the financial meltdown of 2008 (t-test value -6.527, p ≤ 0.0001). (1990-2008). The findings also showed that there was no statistically significant difference between asset price volatility before and after the financial meltdown of 2008. Interestingly, there is a statistically significant difference between stock market value traded in the period from 1990-2008 and 20092017 after the financial crisis (t = -4.295, p ≤0.001). The second objective sought to examine the causal direction between financialisation and household indebtedness. Contrary to a priori expectations, the findings showed that financial deregulation, foreign financial inflows and shift to market-based finance do not Granger cause indebtedness. However, the findings showed that the null hypothesis that asset price does not Granger cause household indebtedness was rejected. This implies that there is a causal direction between asset price volatility and household indebtedness Lastly, the third objective of this study was to explain the effects of financialisation and indebtedness on economic development to inform the indebtedness framework that this study set out to develop. Using annual data for the period of 1990 to 2017, the third objective was addressed by examining the effect of household indebtedness and financialisation on economic development. These effects were tested using OLS regression and error correction modelling technique (ECM) for each of the four financialisation variable: (1) financial deregulation measured using the financial reform index; (2) foreign financial inflows measured using stock of foreign liabilities as percentage of GDP; (3) asset price volatility; and (4) shift to market-based finance, measured using stock market value traded as percentage of GDP. The findings showed that foreign financial inflows and asset price index when regressed with household indebtedness showed a statistically significant effect on economic development in a long-run model. The indebtedness framework was duly presented showing that economic development is likely to be negatively and strongly affected by financialisation as experienced in asset price volatility and foreign financial inflows. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / D.B.L.

Dans un contexte économique instable, résultant notamment de la mondialisation des échanges, de la financiarisationde l’économie et de l’accélération des mutations technologiques, caractérisé de surcroît par l’apathie endémique de lacroissance économique française, la prospérité et la survie des entreprises dépendent de leur capacité à s’adapter enpermanence aux évolutions du marché pour pouvoir sauvegarder leur compétitivité, assurer leur développement etfaire face à une concurrence toujours plus vive. Si les restructurations sont indispensables pour assurer la pérennité desentreprises dont dépendent le maintien de l’emploi, le dynamisme du marché du travail et la création de richesse, ellesmettent fréquemment en péril les intérêts des salariés. Nombre d’entre elles menacent ainsi leur emploi et partant leursécurité économique et matérielle, mais également leurs droits collectifs qu’il s’agisse des avantages issus de leurstatut collectif ou de leur droit à participer à la détermination de leurs conditions de travail et à la gestion del’entreprise via leurs représentants, dont le mandat peut être affecté par une restructuration. Si ces opérations mettenten péril les intérêts des salariés et génèrent un coût social largement assumé par la collectivité nationale, le droit, enparticulier le droit social, ne peut remettre en cause les projets de restructuration. Ces décisions et leur mise en oeuvrerelèvent en effet de la liberté d’entreprendre des dirigeants de l’entreprise à laquelle le droit social ne saurait porteratteinte en s’immisçant dans leurs choix économiques et stratégiques. L’objet de cette étude est donc d’exposercomment, en dépit de son incapacité à influer sur les décisions de restructurations, le droit social tente d’en limiter lecoût social, en préservant au mieux les intérêts des salariés. / In an unsettled economic climate, the result in particular of globalisation of trade, the financialisation of the economyand accelerating technological change, further marked by the endemic apathy of French economic growth, theprosperity and survival of companies depend on their capacity to adapt constantly to market trends in order tosafeguard their competitiveness, to ensure their development and to stand up to ever increasingly harsh competition.Whilst restructuring is essential to ensure the long-term survival of companies, on which maintaining jobs, a dynamiclabour market and the creation of wealth all depend, it frequently endangers the interests of employees. Manyrestructuring operations thus threaten their employment and consequently their economic and material security, butalso their collective rights when it comes to advantages resulting from their collective status or their right to participatein determining their working conditions and in the management of the company through their representatives, whosemandate may be impacted by a restructuring operation. While such operations endanger the interests of employees andgenerate a social cost borne to a large extent by the national community, law, and in particular social law, cannotchallenge restructuring projects. Such decisions and their implementation fall within the purview of the freedom to actenjoyed by corporate managers that social law cannot in any way impede by interfering in their economic and strategicchoices. The purpose of this study is therefore to show how social law, despite its inability to influence restructuringdecisions, seeks to limit the social cost by preserving as best as possible the interests of employees.