Warwick Critical Finance Warwick Critical Finance Group

How do economists shape central bank policy? Do we need to place our focus on the legitimating discourses of economists, be they within or outside of central banks; or do we also need to understand the policy devices - ways of observing the economy, measuring developments within it and tools to act upon this information - which are developed by these economists? Which dangers are envisioned/anticipated by these measuring devices and which policy actions do they facilitate?

To discuss these questions, WCF invited Matthias Thiemann, Assistant Professor for European Public Policy at Science Po, Paris. In this talk, Matthias analyses why certain ideas that gained prominence post-crisis are translated into policy tools, while others are eschewed by policy makers.

In this talk, Ruowen Xu examines the organisation process by which Big Data credit scoring models are produced, investigating the analytical work of data scientists who continuously maintain and improve their models to keep the results predictive. Big Data algorithmic technology is having a profound impact on our social, organisational, and public life and it permits large tech companies to perform analytics for consumer credit-risk assessments and to determine credit risk.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a credit score modelling team of a large tech company, Ruowen's research studies the development of an emerging Big Data algorithmic credit-scoring technology alongside the government’s programme for building a social credit system in China. Her findings show that data scientist work is a continuous, repetitive, and a pre-prescribed process of developing and updating models that are complemented with machine learning-generated results, and that the way that data scientist work is organised has a direct impact on the produced model. This research expands the perimeter of how we look at algorithms and, broadly, other data-driven computing devices by looking at the organisational setting through which they are produced.

For more information, please visit: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/currentstudents/phd/resources/wcf/upcomingevents/ruowen-xu/

A decade after the 2008 financial crisis, new political economic imaginaries have emerged to make sense of our financialised world. Critical macro-finance is one of the most important of these trends. It has shed light on the infrastructure of contemporary global finance, the links between shadow banking, money markets and monetary policy, and the evolving governance architecture established in the wreckage of the crash.

To discuss critical macro-finance, WCF is excited to get into conversation with Daniela Gabor, Professor of Economics and Macro-Finance at UWE Bristol. Daniela is working on the intersections of economics, finance and political economy, researching a variety of areas such as shadow banking activities, especially repo markets, and their implications for monetary theory, central banking, sovereign bond markets and regulatory activities.

If 'globalisation' was the dominating concept of the 1990s and 'neoliberalisation' followed in the 2000s, then 'financialisation' is arguably one of the hottest candidate for succession in the 2010s. Its inflationary use has been debated for some time now, without actually diminishing its appeal in various contexts.

In order to think through the stakes attendant to the continued research of financialisation and its multiple operationalisations, we invited two active protagonists in these debates. Ève Chiapello and Pauline Gleadle discussed each other's work and critically assessed the ways in which the study of financialisation continues to shape the current critical debates about global finance and global capitalism more generally.

The talk presented empirical findings on the use of flexitime policies in financial institutions as a way to manage workload fluctuations around month-end. Because financial institutions are dealing in financial transactions, month-end becomes an exceptionally busy and stressful time with all parties clamouring to meet deadlines before the books are closed. Not to mention the deadlines imposed by the banks, the authorisations required by law, and the stringent audits, all of which have tightened since the economic crisis. However, while the use of flexitime may work well for those who can be flexible, i.e. young, ambitious employees, it works less well for those who cannot be flexible, i.e. mothers of young children, raising some important questions about finance sector culture, as well as about gender inequality therein.

Speaker: Heather Griffiths is a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Her broad research interests are in gender and work, work life balance and feminist theory. Her PhD research looks at flexible working policies within the finance sector, and whether such policies will be supported by finance sector culture, as well as how they impact on gender equality and work life balance both at work and in the home.

The talk presented empirical findings on the use of flexitime policies in financial institutions as a way to manage workload fluctuations around month-end. Because financial institutions are dealing in financial transactions, month-end becomes an exceptionally busy and stressful time with all parties clamouring to meet deadlines before the books are closed. Not to mention the deadlines imposed by the banks, the authorisations required by law, and the stringent audits, all of which have tightened since the economic crisis. However, while the use of flexitime may work well for those who can be flexible, i.e. young, ambitious employees, it works less well for those who cannot be flexible, i.e. mothers of young children, raising some important questions about finance sector culture, as well as about gender inequality therein.

Speaker: Heather Griffiths is a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Sociology. Her broad research interests are in gender and work, work life balance and feminist theory. Her PhD research looks at flexible working policies within the finance sector, and whether such policies will be supported by finance sector culture, as well as how they impact on gender equality and work life balance both at work and in the home.