Periodic Reporting for period 4 - SWFsEUROPE (Legitimacy, Financialization, and Varieties of Capitalism: Understanding Sovereign Wealth Funds in Europe)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-01-31
The project is divided into three overlapping sub-projects: the first investigated how SWFs become legitimate actors in global markets; the second sought to explain the variegated pattern of foreign state investment in Europe; the third explored why some European countries have established SWFs of their own.
Researchers from the team have conducted field work in several locations, including Russia and China, and attended major international forums focused on SWFs. For example, work conducted on the China Investment Corporation, the country’s premier SWF, has demonstrated how global financial professionals facilitate and legitimate the integration of Chinese state capital in global markets. This work also unpacked the differential approaches to Chinese foreign investment, showing the key differences between investment through the SWF or state-owned enterprises. This is crucial for avoiding a monolithic view of Chinese foreign investment when researching Chinese state capital in receiving countries in the second subproject.
The SWFsEUROPE project, in addition to producing 12 journal articles, produced two monographs (Sovereign Wealth Funds; The Rise of State Capital), a PhD thesis (Investing for the State), and an edited volume (The Political Economy of Geoeconomics). Project team members have presented work and/or engaged with policymakers and practitioners, including at the European Commission, the Bank of Botswana, and the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds.