GGR1610H: Geography of Finance & Financial Crisis

This course seeks to understand the world of financial flows, intermediaries, and instruments, and how these may be related to the uneven geography of mortgage foreclosures, real estate inflation and deflation, bank bailouts, and government austerity programs. It explores how this geography of finance might be related to the production of financial crises, and how the global geography of international finance relates to the public finances of nations and municipalities, pension and hedge funds, and individual investors. The course begins by exploring the workings of international finance, and the literature on the geography of financialization and the globalization of finance. It then moves to examine the history and geography of financial crises to consider the different theories of financial crisis emanating from disparate political-economic-geographical perspectives, as well as the divergent policy implications that flow from such theories. The course then explores the literature regarding the localized effects of the geography of finance.

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