IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/raagxx/v112y2022i5p1243-1259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Un/Making Assets: The Institutional Limits to Financialization

Author

Listed:
  • Kelly Kay
  • Renee Tapp

Abstract

This article contributes to contemporary debates within the financialization and assetization literatures by examining the sale of tax credits in U.S. property markets over the last twenty years. Whereas the vast majority of research on financial assets focuses on the income-generating aspects of property, this article considers a more holistic approach to assets. Through detailed empirical analysis of syndication in historic tax credit and conservation easement markets, we demonstrate how assets are not just sources of income or cash flow but also—critically—sources of expense reduction. Drawing from relevant U.S. tax law and related legal provisions, we trace three interlocking components in the assetization process: enabling and disabling legislation, the structures and typologies of property ownership, and the actors that make deals happen. By starting with asset creation, rather than assumed geographies of investment, we bridge the rural–urban divide to reveal new geographies of finance sourced directly from the state. Although the tax sheltering dimensions of assets are unique in this regard, the state retains the capacity to unmake assets that lack “economic substance.” As such, this article offers a new direction forward—a legal-institutionalist framework—that foregrounds the state as setting and enforcing the limits to financialization.

Suggested Citation

  • Kelly Kay & Renee Tapp, 2022. "Un/Making Assets: The Institutional Limits to Financialization," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(5), pages 1243-1259, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:raagxx:v:112:y:2022:i:5:p:1243-1259
    DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1960474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/24694452.2021.1960474
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/24694452.2021.1960474?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jens Christiansen, 2024. "State capacity and the ‘value’ of sustainable finance: Understanding the state-mediated rent and value production through the Seychelles Blue Bonds," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(2), pages 402-417, March.
    2. John Schmidt, 2024. "Incendiary assets: Risk, power, and the law in an era of catastrophic fire," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(2), pages 418-435, March.
    3. Zhenfa Li & Fulong Wu & Fangzhu Zhang, 2023. "State de-financialisation through incorporating local government bonds in the budgetary process in China," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(5), pages 1169-1190.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:raagxx:v:112:y:2022:i:5:p:1243-1259. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/raag .

    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.