IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v55y2023i4p1062-1079.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Legal affordances in global wealth chains: How platform firms use legal and spatial scaling

Author

Listed:
  • Maj Grasten

    (4300Copenhagen Business School)

  • Leonard Seabrooke

    (4300Copenhagen Business School)

  • Duncan Wigan

    (4300Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

Firms can use legal and spatial scaling to increase their control and capacity to exploit assets. Here we examine how platform firms, like AirBnB, Uber, and Bird, scale their operations through global wealth chains. Their use of law is to maximize wealth creation and protection, while their services use local spaces to extract value from established property, labor, and public thoroughfares. We examine how such ‘networked accumulation’ platform firms use legal and spatial scaling through legal affordances. This includes opportunities for absences, ambiguities and arbitrage that are realized via multi and inter-scalar strategies and produce variegation. Our analysis draws on legal documents, as well as interviews, from Barcelona and San Francisco. The article contributes with a model of how platform firms use legal and spatial scaling, as well as how activists can challenge their operations.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:55:y:2023:i:4:p:1062-1079
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X211057131
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X211057131
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X211057131?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonard Seabrooke & Duncan Wigan, 2017. "The governance of global wealth chains," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 1-29, January.
    2. Dick Bryan & Michael Rafferty & Duncan Wigan, 2016. "Politics, time and space in the era of shadow banking," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 941-966, November.
    3. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    4. Lena Ajdacic & Eelke M. Heemskerk & Javier Garcia-Bernardo, 2021. "The Wealth Defence Industry: A Large-scale Study on Accountancy Firms as Profit Shifting Facilitators," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 690-706, July.
    5. J.C. Sharman, 2017. "Illicit Global Wealth Chains after the financial crisis: micro-states and an unusual suspect," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 30-55, January.
    6. Rex McKenzie & Rowland Atkinson, 2020. "Anchoring capital in place: The grounded impact of international wealth chains on housing markets in London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(1), pages 21-38, January.
    7. Petter Törnberg & Letizia Chiappini, 2020. "Selling black places on Airbnb: Colonial discourse and the marketing of black communities in New York City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(3), pages 553-572, May.
    8. Dixon, Adam D., 2014. "The New Geography of Capitalism: Firms, Finance, and Society," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199668243, Decembrie.
    9. Seidl, Timo, 2020. "The Politics of Platform Capitalism. A Case Study on the Regulation of Uber in New York," SocArXiv up9qz, Center for Open Science.
    10. Mark Graham & Isis Hjorth & Vili Lehdonvirta, 2017. "Digital labour and development: impacts of global digital labour platforms and the gig economy on worker livelihoods," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 23(2), pages 135-162, May.
    11. Eric Sheppard, 2002. "The Spaces and Times of Globalization: Place, Scale, Networks, and Positionality," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 78(3), pages 307-330, July.
    12. 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.
    13. Daniel Haberly & Dariusz Wójcik, 2017. "Earth Incorporated: Centralization and Variegation in the Global Company Network," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 93(3), pages 241-266, May.
    14. Robé Jean-Philippe, 2011. "The Legal Structure of the Firm," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-88, January.
    15. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Richard Phillips & Hannah Petersen & Ronen Palan, 2021. "Group subsidiaries, tax minimization and offshore financial centres: Mapping organizational structures to establish the ‘in-betweener’ advantage," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(2), pages 286-307, June.
    4. Blanche Segrestin & Armand Hatchuel & Kevin Levillain, 2021. "When the Law Distinguishes Between the Enterprise and the Corporation: The Case of the New French Law on Corporate Purpose," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 1-13, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Oddný Helgadóttir, 2023. "The new luxury freeports: Offshore storage, tax avoidance, and ‘invisible’ art," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 1020-1040, June.
    7. Joseph Heath, 2011. "Business Ethics and the ‘End of History’ in Corporate Law," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 5-20, March.
    8. Simon Deakin, 2017. "Tony Lawson’s Theory of the Corporation: Towards a Social Ontology of Law," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 41(5), pages 1505-1523.
    9. Gindis, David & Hodgson, Geoffrey M. & Huang, Kainan & Pistor, Katharina, 2017. "Legal institutionalism: Capitalism and the constitutive role of lawAuthor-Name: Deakin, Simon," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 188-200.
    10. José Ángel Moreno Izquierdo, 2019. "De la empresa accionarial a la empresa participativa," Revista de Economía Crítica, Asociación de Economía Crítica, vol. 28, pages 55-68.
    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. 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.
    13. Blanche Segrestin & Armand Hatchuel & Kevin Levillain, 2021. "When the Law Distinguishes Between the Enterprise and the Corporation: The Case of the New French Law on Corporate Purpose," Post-Print hal-02465609, HAL.
    14. Manon François & Vincent Vicard, 2023. "Tax Avoidance and the Complexity of Multinational Enterprises," Working Papers halshs-04103793, HAL.
    15. Pierre-Louis Choquet, 2019. "Piercing the corporate veil: Towards a better assessment of the position of transnational oil and gas companies in the global carbon budget," Post-Print hal-04401241, HAL.
    16. Scherer Anna-Lena & Schmiel Ute, 2021. "Ethical and Legal Responsibility of Multinational Corporate Groups for a Fair Share of Taxes," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2021(1), pages 32-46, October.
    17. 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.
    18. Veldman, Jeroen, 2018. "Inequality, Inc," MPRA Paper 86644, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Babic, Milan & Dixon, Adam & Fichtner, Jan, 2021. "Varieties of state capital: What does foreign state-led investment do in a globalized world?," OSF Preprints tm82g, Center for Open Science.
    20. Ronen Palan & Hannah Petersen & Richard Phillips, 2023. "Arbitrage spaces in the offshore world: Layering, ‘fuses’ and partitioning of the legal structure of modern firms," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 1041-1061, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:55:y:2023:i:4:p:1062-1079. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.