Final paper from our #assetstruggles special issue now online: "The ESG backlash: contesting the low-carbon transition under asset manager capitalism" by @jenmcarthur.bsky.social. The paper studies the contestation of "greening" infrastructure assets and the effects of the anti-green backlash.

How does rampant #assetisation and variation in #assetmanagement affect social conflicts? Our special issue co-edited with @theobourgeron.bsky.social in New Political Economy proposes a framework to analyse such asset struggles and brings together 7 papers with key empirical studies. 🧵

I'll be speaking to Kate Bayliss tomorrow @housmansbookshop.bsky.social about her new book! If you're in London, come by 🌳 housmans.com/event/book-l...

BOOK LAUNCH: Privatising humanity by Kate Bayliss

Kate Bayliss in conversation with Adrienne Buller PRIVATISING HUMANITY is a powerful exposé of how finance turns our basic human needs into assets. We have entered a new era of turbo-charged financ…

housmans.com

Why are international finance centres absent from debates on post-carbon transitions? In this new commentary, Sabine Dörry calls for forensic research into the institutional structures through which IFCs constrain rapid and just transitions. Read it here: doi.org/10.1080/2833...

Carbon lock-in: why international financial centres matter for post-carbon transitions

International financial centres (IFCs) are not merely sites where global capital concentrates; they are legal-economic architectures that actively reproduce carbon lock-in. This commentary conceptu...

doi.org

& this is why investing pension savings in private markets is not the genius move USS think it is

Liz McFall@allartmarkets.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“Nothing ever looks very good in terms of what they’ve invested in,” big 🥁 for USS giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... The questions over strategy at the UK’s largest private pension fund

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

We reported this morning that Thames Water’s creditors have demanded waivers that would exempt it from key environmental laws. Hours later, the environment secretary signaled he would reject these demands and said the govt has “stepped up” preparations for a special administration on.ft.com/3SYbN2U

UK government rebuffs Thames Water creditor demands as administration looms

[FREE TO READ] Bondholders’ rescue plan for utility hinges on waivers from regulations and fines, documents show

on.ft.com

CDPQ, Canada’s second-largest pension fund, plans to invest £8bn in Britain over the next five years (£17bn current allocation). CEO says UK "top of the list" compared with other countries as it looks to lower allocation to US and invest in infrastructure around the world www.ft.com/content/ebba...

Canadian pension giant to invest more than £8bn in UK

Government plans for infrastructure are ‘huge opportunity’, says CDPQ chief

ft.com