Neoliberalism and the financialization process of the globalized agribusiness: an analysis from Brazil

Abstract

This research project proposes to study how the neoliberalism has driven the financialization process of the contemporary economy and, particularly, of the globalized agribusiness, based on an analysis of the case of Brazil. In recent decades, the political economy context of neoliberalism and its normative and financial deregulation/flexibilization mechanisms has favored the liberalization of financial markets and the insertion of new types of investing agents into productive sectors, boosting the conditions for capital accumulation. Among the sectors recently affected, notes the case of agricultural production, which in the last two decades has had large agroindustrial companies adopting different financialization strategies in order to raise financial resources, especially in the capital markets, to finance the costs of productive operations and investments in business expansion. This process has substantially increased the debt levels of large companies, resulting in exacerbated financial leverage and greater operational risks. On the other hand, the greater influence of financial agents and financial process on the productive and commercial dynamics of these companies imposes new forms of corporate governance, determining actions that reduce costs and amplify profits to maximize the value of shareholders investors, through of location competitive logics, renewed operational organization and new strategies for uses of the territory by agribusiness corporations. Therefore, the research purpose to understand the geography of financialization of the contemporary neoliberal capitalist economy and how this phenomenon has had unfolded in the globalized agribusiness, having as points of investigation: the dimensions of financialization of the international markets for agricultural commodities and of the sector's companies with public capital in stock exchanges; the importance of the capital markets and; the role of the financial capital agents in the productive and geographical dynamic of agribusiness corporations.