Overview

The world economy operates around the production of value and the creation and protection of wealth. Firms and other actors use global value chains to make the most for the least cost, ideally also contributing to economic development. Firms and professionals use global wealth chains to create and protect wealth, strategically planning across multiple legal jurisdictions to control how assets are governed. The outcome of such planning often contributes to global inequality. While we know a great deal about value chains, we know much less about wealth chains. This volume explores how global wealth chains are articulated, issues of regulatory liability, and how social relationships between clients and service providers are important for governance issues. It explores how assets are governed across a range of sectors such as public utilities, food and alcohol, art, and pharmaceuticals, as well as in legal instruments like advance pricing agreements, tax treaties, regulatory standards, intellectual property, family trusts, and legal opinion. The book integrates insights from a range of disciplines including International Political Economy, Economic Geography, Sociology, Accounting, Management Studies, Anthropology, and Law to reveal how global wealth chains are used to govern assets in the world economy.

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9780198832379

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Reviews

This volume is a vital complement to the well-established literature on global value chains. In an ambitious introduction, Seabrooke and Wigan lay the groundwork for this analytical project by developing a typology of global wealth chains. Contributors bring these ideal types to life through theoretically and empirically rich explorations of fields as diverse as art, mining, and public utilities. By focusing on asset strategies and the interpretive communities that devise and defend them, this volume pioneers a method for unraveling the intentionally complex and opaque machinations by which wealth is accumulated and maintained. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the nature of power, privilege, and inequality in the global political economy. * Jennifer Bair, Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia * Global Value Chains (GVCs) enable firms to make things cheaply and maximize profits. But what happens to those profits? If production is about value, then profits are about wealth. And just as GVCs create those profits, so Global Wealth Chains — profit defending asset strategies — keep those profits out of the hands of those outside the firm (workers, regulators, governments) that would like to get their hands on them. Seabrooke and Wigan and their collaborators show us through detailed case studies how wealth is defended, augmented and extended through a variety of corporate and other legal forms. * Mark Blyth, The William R. Rhodes '57 Professor of International Economics, Brown University * With their concept of global wealth chains, Seabrooke and Wigan have opened up a powerful new stream of research that addresses a central issue in modern societies — how wealth is maintained and reproduced in a world characterised by economic uncertainties, financial market instabilities, state revenue and tax authorities, and egalitarian social movements. This is essential reading for anybody interested in how wealth is sustained and protected in the contemporary period. It is a truly inter-disciplinary project that reflects the best of contemporary social science and its ability to reveal to society and policy makers the opaque structures and processes that underpin current conditions of inequality of wealth and power. * Glenn Morgan, Honorary Professor of Management, University of Bristol *

This volume is a vital complement to the well-established literature on global value chains. In an ambitious introduction, Seabrooke and Wigan lay the groundwork for this analytical project by developing a typology of global wealth chains. Contributors bring these ideal types to life through theoretically and empirically rich explorations of fields as diverse as art, mining, and public utilities. By focusing on asset strategies and the interpretive communities that devise and defend them, this volume pioneers a method for unraveling the intentionally complex and opaque machinations by which wealth is accumulated and maintained. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the nature of power, privilege, and inequality in the global political economy. * Jennifer Bair, Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia * Global Value Chains (GVCs) enable firms to make things cheaply and maximize profits. But what happens to those profits? If production is about value, then profits are about wealth. And just as GVCs create those profits, so Global Wealth Chains - profit defending asset strategies - keep those profits out of the hands of those outside the firm (workers, regulators, governments) that would like to get their hands on them. Seabrooke and Wigan and their collaborators show us through detailed case studies how wealth is defended, augmented and extended through a variety of corporate and other legal forms. * Mark Blyth, The William R. Rhodes '57 Professor of International Economics, Brown University * With their concept of global wealth chains, Seabrooke and Wigan have opened up a powerful new stream of research that addresses a central issue in modern societies - how wealth is maintained and reproduced in a world characterised by economic uncertainties, financial market instabilities, state revenue and tax authorities, and egalitarian social movements. This is essential reading for anybody interested in how wealth is sustained and protected in the contemporary period. It is a truly inter-disciplinary project that reflects the best of contemporary social science and its ability to reveal to society and policy makers the opaque structures and processes that underpin current conditions of inequality of wealth and power. * Glenn Morgan, Honorary Professor of Management, University of Bristol *

Author Information

Leonard Seabrooke is Professor of International Political Economy and Economic Sociology in the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School, and Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. His work is known for its interdisciplinarity, drawing on political economy, economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies. His current research concentrates on transnational professionals across a range of cases, from finance and tax experts, to consultants, sustainability experts, and others. Seabrooke's work has appeared in leading journals, including American Sociological Review, Annual Review of Sociology, Governance, Public Administration, Review of International Political Economy, and many others. Duncan Wigan is Professor MSO of International Political Economy in the Department of Organization at Copenhagen Business School. His work has focused on innovation and governance in financial markets, corporate organization, and activism for economic justice. His current research concentrates on issues of international taxation, intangible capital, and expert-activism. His work has appeared in leading journals, including Economy & Society, New Political Economy, Regulation & Governance, Review of International Political Economy, and many others.

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