Postdoctoral Researcher: The Geography of Corporate Financialization 
(ref. BAP-2020-174)

The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Geography & Tourism at KU Leuven (Belgium) is looking for a full-time Postdoctoral researcher for up to 22 months (or up to 26 months at 0.8 fte). Together with a PhD candidate and partners at the NGO www.somo.nl you will work on the research project "The Geography of Corporate Financialization", which is part of the "Real Estate/Financial Complex" (REFCOM) research group, coordinated by dr. Manuel B. Aalbers. REFCOM is an internationally comparative and transdisciplinary research group looking into the increasing interconnectedness of real estate and finance, and the role of states, politics and institutions. This particular research project is funded by Research Foundation Flanders (see fwo.be).

Responsibilities
The financialization of the economy is widely discussed in the literature, especially outside mainstream economics. For several countries, there is evidence of a shift towards finance at the level of the economy at large as well as regarding the financialization of households, but the literature on the financialization of traditionally non-financial firms is less conclusive. The problem is that our understandings—and our statistics—of manufacturing firms versus financial firms are becoming increasingly outdated and new data sources and conceptualizations are needed to understand the contemporary economy. Our first aim is to show to what extent non-financial corporations in different economic sectors across the globe exhibit different signs of financialization in their financial accounts. Our second aim is to arrive at an understanding of the reasons for as well as the workings and the consequences of financialization in non-financial corporations.

Profile
The candidate:

• A PhD degree in Geography, Sociology, Accountancy or Political Economy;
• Proficiency in English is a prerequisite, proficiency in other languages an advantage;
• Affinity with quantitative and to a lesser extent qualitative research methods is necessary; good statistics and computer skills;
• The candidate is willing to move to Belgium, but also willing to travel to other places for fieldwork, research cooperation (e.g. Amsterdam) and conferences;
• A small part (no more than 20% of your time) may be allocated to teaching or general research, teaching and management assistance tasks;
• Candidates who are familiar with the financialization literature will have an advantage, so will candidates that have finished a PhD thesis in economic geography, economic sociology, critical accountancy or political economy. If you are trained as an economist, it is important you are familiar with heterodox and other non-conventional critical approaches.

Offer

• A fully funded Postdoctoral fellowship for 6 months, extendable to a maximum of 22 months (or 26 months at 0.8 fte) after positive evaluation; 
• Funding for workshops and conferences during this period;
• A dynamic research group at the forefront of financialization studies / financial geography;
• Starting date: at earliest June 15, 2020; at latest October 1, 2020.

Interested?
Please upload your CV including publication list and teaching experience, a cover/motivation letter of 1-2 pages including three references (you don’t need to provide references letters yet), and two writing samples (e.g. a published/submitted paper or a dissertation chapter).
  
For more information, please e-mail both manuel.aalbers@kuleuven.be and rodrigo@somo.nl. 

You can apply for this job no later than April 27, 2020 via the online application tool 

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