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Capital unchained: finance, intangible assets and the double life of capital in the offshore world

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  • Dick Bryan
  • Michael Rafferty
  • Duncan Wigan

Abstract

The rise of intangible assets such as brand names, research and development, patents and other forms of abstract capital such as digital platforms and data flows has confounded extant measures and concepts of capital and accumulation. What used to be a residual asset category known as ‘goodwill’ has now overtaken so-called fixed or tangible assets in the profitability and valuation of many leading corporations. Yet these intangible assets lead a double life as both spatial and temporal in some dimensions, yet fluid and spatio-temporally elusive in others. Using a framework focused on measuring (by accountants), managing (by corporations) and monitoring (by International Political Economy scholars and regulators), this article explores the longer term implications of accumulation of internationalised capital in intangible and abstract forms, and the prominent role of finance and offshore in giving mobility and fluidity to these forms of capital. The article suggests that while global value chain and global production network analyses have helped researchers and policy-makers to track increasingly fragmented and fluid networks of commodity production, there also is a need to follow the global double life of internationalised and financialised intangible assets and wealth flows, and parallel reorganisations of state forms in response to those transformations.

Suggested Citation

  • Dick Bryan & Michael Rafferty & Duncan Wigan, 2017. "Capital unchained: finance, intangible assets and the double life of capital in the offshore world," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 56-86, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:24:y:2017:i:1:p:56-86
    DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2016.1262446
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Uppenberg, Kristian, 2010. "The knowledge economy in Europe," EIB Economic Surveys, European Investment Bank, number 1, sept-dec.
    2. Veblen, Thorstein, 1904. "Theory of Business Enterprise," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number veblen1904.
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    Cited by:

    1. Petr Janský & Miroslav Palanský, 2019. "Estimating the scale of profit shifting and tax revenue losses related to foreign direct investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(5), pages 1048-1103, October.
    2. Maj Grasten & Leonard Seabrooke & Duncan Wigan, 2023. "Legal affordances in global wealth chains: How platform firms use legal and spatial scaling," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 1062-1079, June.
    3. Richard Bůžek & Christoph Scheuplein, 2022. "The Global Wealth Chains of Private‐Equity‐Run Physician Practices," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(4), pages 331-347, September.
    4. Leonardo Costa Ribeiro & Ulisses dos Santos & Valbona Muzaka, 2017. "Trademarks as an indicator of innovation: towards a fuller picture," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 571, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    5. Costantiello, Alberto & Laureti, Lucio & Leogrande, Angelo, 2021. "The Intellectual Assets in Europe," MPRA Paper 110506, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Bichler, Shimshon & Nitzan, Jonathan, 2023. "The Capital As Power Approach. An Invited-then-Rejected Interview with Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan," Review of Capital as Power, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, vol. 2(2), pages 96-174.
    7. Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Jan Fichtner & Eelke M. Heemskerk & Frank W. Takes, 2017. "Uncovering Offshore Financial Centers: Conduits and Sinks in the Global Corporate Ownership Network," Papers 1703.03016, arXiv.org, revised May 2017.
    8. Mohrschladt, Hannes & Nolte, Sven, 2018. "A new risk factor based on equity duration," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 126-135.
    9. Tristan Auvray & Cédric Durand & Joel Rabinovich & Cecilia Rikap, 2021. "Corporate financialization’s conservation and transformation: from Mark I to Mark II," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 431-457, December.
    10. Tristan Auvray & Cédric Durand & Joel Rabinovich & Cecilia Rikap, 2020. "Financialization's conservation and transformation: from Mark I to Mark II," Working Papers hal-03079425, HAL.
    11. Petr Janský & Miroslav Palanský, 2019. "Estimating the scale of profit shifting and tax revenue losses related to foreign direct investment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(5), pages 1048-1103, October.
    12. Leonardo Costa Ribeiro & Ulisses Pereira Santos & Valbona Muzaka, 2022. "Trademarks as an indicator of innovation: towards a fuller picture," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 481-508, January.
    13. Rasmus Corlin Christensen & Leonard Seabrooke & Duncan Wigan, 2022. "Professional action in global wealth chains," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 705-721, July.
    14. Callum Ward, 2021. "Contradictions of Financial Capital Switching: Reading the Corporate Leverage Crisis through The Port of Liverpool's Whole Business Securitization," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 249-265, March.
    15. Garcia-Bernardo, Javier & Reurink, Arjan, 2019. "Competing with whom? European tax competition, the "great fragmentation of the firm," and varieties of FDI attraction profiles," MPIfG Discussion Paper 19/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

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