Circuits of the urban economy and recent diffusion of credit: banking, non-banking activities and loan-sharking in the State of Alagoas

Abstract

The territorial dimension reached by the banking system, added to credit debureaucratization policies in Brazil in the last two decades, hide the oligopolistic and selective character of the bank sector which, due to the permanent movements of expansion and retraction geographic landmarks that make up their networks, immediately affect areas of low economic dynamism, allowing the diffusion and renewal of non-bank forms of credit. Thus, the recent retraction of state-controlled bank networks greatly altered determined flows and hierarchies in urban centers, weakening access to financial services and giving the past forms of credit offer more active participation in the country, the example of non-institutional credit with exorbitant interest rates, that is, the loan sharking. It is intended in this project, understand the forms of credit offer in the current period, as much formal credits as loan sharking, and its role in constitution the circuits of urban economy in Alagoas cities. For the levels of analysis (national and regional), it is proposed to accomplish documentary research to support them; that is, to use, above all, official statistics and technical diagnoses to compose the theoretical-empirical link. The state of Alagoas was defined as the geographic scale of main analysis, including the study from its officially determined regions (immediate and intermediate geographic regions). This regional cut comprises, at the local scale, 102 urban centers, where field work (sampling) will also be accomplished with credit market agents, mainly, agents directly linked to loan sharking. (AU)