Staff profile

Paul Langley is Professor of Economic Geography. He joined the Department in 2011, and was previously Professor of International Relations at University of York. Paul's Departmental roles have included Deputy Director of Education, Programme Director BA(Hons) Geography, and Convenor of the Economy & Culture research cluster. He is presently Deputy Director for Research Postgraduates.

Paul's research interests centre on money and finance. He is the author of three monographs - World Financial Orders (Routledge, 2002/2013), The Everyday Life of Global Finance (Oxford University Press, 2008), and Liquidity Lost (Oxford University Press, 2015). His research has received support from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), British Academy, and European Commission.

Paul is also Managing Editor of a leading interdisciplinary journal for social scientists - Economy and Society (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/reso20/current)

Twitter: @_paullangley

Paul's research presently focuses on two spaces of finance:

(1) Digital finance and FinTech

Paul’s work on digital finance and FinTech continues his long-standing interest in the transformation of retail financial services (e.g., The Everyday Life of Global Finance, OUP, 2008; Consumption, Markets and Culture, 2014). It features research with Andrew Leyshon (University of Nottingham) into the distinctive platformization and neo-colonial processes of FinTech (e.g. Finance & Society 2017, New Political Economy, 2020). Paul also co-edited a 2022 special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy on 'FinTech in Africa'. He is presently completing a monograph on FinTech economies that will be published in the Near Futures series of Zone Books.    

Focused on the payday loan market in the UK, Paul was also Co-Investigator on a ESRC project (http://www.debtinterfaces.org.uk/) that explored how credit-debt relations are mediated through digital platforms and apps. Publicatons include a methodological piece on researching digital interfaces (‘Unit, Vibration, Tone’, Cultural Geographies, 2017), an account of the experimental work of interface designers ('Digital interface design and power', Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2018), and a paper interrogating how borrowers relate to payday loans as money relations rather than credit-debt relations ('Indebted life and money culture', Economy and Society, 2019). 

(2) Carbon finance

As part of REINVENT - a Horizon 2020 project with European partners and Harriet Bulkeley and Gavin Bridge from Durham Geography - Paul investigated the emergence of new forms of carbon finance in response to climate change. Publications from this project include ('Pluralizing and problematizing carbon finance', Progress in Human Geography, 2019; and 'Decarbonizing capital: Investment, divestment and the qualification of carbon assets', Economy and Society, 2021).

Related work includes a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Financial Geography on 'Impact investors' (2021), and a piece with John Morris (University of Nottingham) on the role of central banks as 'climate governors of last resort' (Environment and Planning A, 2020).

Research into carbon finance extends Paul's research into governmental processes that variously seek to secure the future of life via financial logics, techniques and practices. See, for example: a book-length treatment of these issues in Liquidity Lost (OUP, 2015); an article on the financialization of the urban infrastructures of life (Economic Anthropology, 2018); and, a conceptual essay arguing for wide-ranging research into 'The financialization of life' (in International Handbook of Financialization, 2020, edited by Mader, Mertens & van der Zwan). 

Cutting across his research, Paul contributes to theoretical debates underway in economic geography, economic sociology, and beyond. This includes interest in the strengths and limitations of processual concepts (e.g. marketization, valuation, assetization, platformization) (e.g. Environment and Planning A, 2020; Review of International Political Economy, 2020); the ways in which Economics can be understood to have affective, performative and governmental power; and, how the making of economic subjectivities contributes to constituting processes of economic change.

Supervises

Paul welcomes doctoral research students interested in working on topics that fall broadly within the remit of his research interests. He has previously supervised students who have written theses on a wide range of topics, including: occupational pensions in the UK; sub-prime mortgage markets in the US and UK; ‘small states’ and ‘hot money’ in the global economy; financial stability and central banking; the rise of the US dollar as 'world money'; fiscal austerity and everyday life; private wealth management; urban air rights markets; and, distributed ledger technology and cross-border payments. He is presently supervising doctoral projects on central bank digital currencies, overseas stock market listings by Chinese firms, and the making of carbon markets in Chinese cities. 

In 2021, Paul received the University-wide Teaching and Learning Award for Excellence in Research Student Supervision. 

• Geographies of money and finance
• Financialization
• Cultural economy

Authored book

• Langley, P. (2014). Liquidity Lost: The Governance of the Global Financial Crisis. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199683789.001.0001
• Langley, P. (2008). The Everyday Life of Global Finance: Saving and Borrowing in Anglo-America. Oxford University Press
• Langley, P. (2002). World Financial Orders: An Historical International Political Economy. Routledge

Chapter in book

• Langley, P. (2021). Impact investors: The ethical financialization of development, society and nature. In J. Knox-Hayes, & D. Wojcik (Eds.), Routledge handbook of financial geography. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351119061
• Langley, P. (2020). The financialization of life. In P. Mader, D. Mertens, & N. van der Zwan (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of financialization. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315142876-6
• Langley, P. (2017). Financial flows: Spatial imaginaries of speculative circulations. In B. Christophers, A. Leyshon, & G. Mann (Eds.), Money and finance after the crisis : critical thinking for uncertain times (69-90). John Wiley and Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119051374.ch3
• Langley, P. (2010). The ethical investor and embodied economies. In R. Abdelal, M. Blyth, & C. Parson (Eds.), Constructing the International Economy. Cornell University Press
• Langley, P. (2009). Consumer credit, self-discipline, and risk management. In G. Clark, A. Dixon, & A. Monk (Eds.), Managing Financial Risks: From Global to Local (280-300). Oxford University Press

Journal Article

• Lai, K. P., & Langley, P. (2024). Playful finance: Gamification and intermediation in FinTech economies. Geoforum, 151, Article 103848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2023.103848
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2023). FinTech platform regulation: Regulating with/against platforms in the United Kingdom and China. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 16(2), 257–268. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsad005
• McFarlane, C., Langley, P., Lewis, S., Painter, J., & Vradis, A. (2023). Interrogating ‘urban social innovation’: relationality and urban change in Berlin. Urban Geography, 44(2), 337-357. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2021.2003586
• Langley, P., Ashenden, S., Barry, A., Bear, L., Kelly, A., McGoey, L. J., Molyneux, M., Neyland, D., Parry, B., Tonkiss, F., & Weszkalnys, G. (2023). Nigel Dodd: An appreciation. Economy and Society, 52(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2023.2157584
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2022). Neo-colonial credit: FinTech platforms in Africa. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(4), 401-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2022.2028652
• Langley, P., & Rodima-Taylor, D. (2022). FinTech in Africa: An Editorial Introduction. Journal of Cultural Economy, 15(4), 387-400. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2022.2092193
• Langley, P. (2021). Economy and society in COVID times. Economy and Society, 50(2), 149-157. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1900653
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2021). The platform political economy of FinTech: Reintermediation, consolidation and capitalisation. New Political Economy, 26(3), 376-388. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2020.1766432
• Langley, P. (2021). Assets and assetization in financialized capitalism. Review of International Political Economy, 28(2), 382-393. https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2020.1830828
• Langley, P., Bridge, G., Bulkeley, H., & van Veelen, B. (2021). Decarbonizing capital: Investment, divestment and the qualification of carbon assets. Economy and Society, 50(3), 494-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1860335
• Langley, P., & Morris, J. H. (2020). Central banks: Climate governors of last resort?. Environment and Planning A, 52(8), 1471-1479. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x20951809
• Langley, P., Lewis, S., McFarlane, C., Painter, J., & Vradis, A. (2020). Crowdfunding cities: Social entrepreneurship, speculation and solidarity in Berlin. Geoforum, 115, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.06.014
• Bridge, G., Bulkeley, H., Langley, P., & van Veelen, B. (2020). Pluralizing and Problematizing Carbon Finance. Progress in Human Geography, 44(4), 724-742. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132519856260
• Anderson, B., Langley, P., Ash, J., & Gordon, R. (2020). Affective Life and Cultural Economy: Payday Loans and the Everyday Space-Times of Credit-Debt in the UK. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 45(2), 420-433. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12355
• Langley, P. (2020). The folds of social finance: Making markets, remaking the social. Environment and Planning A, 52(1), 130-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x17752682
• Langley, P., Anderson, B., Ash, J., & Gordon, R. (2019). Indebted life and money culture: Payday lending in the United Kingdom. Economy and Society, 48(1), 30-51. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2018.1554371
• Ash, J., Anderson, B., Gordon, R., & Langley, P. (2018). Digital Interface Design and Power: Friction, Threshold, Transition. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(3), 1136-1153. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775818767426
• Langley, P. (2018). Frontier financialization: Urban infrastructure in the United Kingdom. Economic Anthropology, 5(2), 172-184. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12115
• Ash, J., Anderson, B., Gordon, R., & Langley, P. (2018). Unit, Vibration, Tone: A Post-Phenomenological Method for Researching Digital Interfaces. Cultural Geographies, 25(1), 165-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474017726556
• Langley, P. (2017). Finance/Security/Life. Finance and Society, 3(2), 173-179. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v3i2.2576
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Platform Capitalism: The Intermediation and Capitalization of Digital Economic Circulation. Finance and Society, 3(1), 11-31. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v3i1.1936
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Capitalizing on the crowd: The monetary and financial ecologies of crowdfunding. Environment and Planning A, 49(5), 1019-1039. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x16687556
• Langley, P. (2016). Crowdfunding in the United Kingdom: A cultural economy. Economic Geography, 92(3), 301-321. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2015.1133233
• Langley, P. (2014). Consuming Credit. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 17(5), 417-428. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2013.849594
• Langley, P. (2014). Equipping entrepreneurs: consuming credit and credit scores. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 17(5), 448-467. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2013.849592
• Langley, P. (2013). Anticipating uncertainty, reviving risk? On the stress testing of finance in crisis. Economy and Society, 42(1), 51-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2012.686719
• Langley, P. (2013). Toxic assets, turbulence and biopolitical security: Governing the crisis of global financial circulation. Security Dialogue, 44(2), 111-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010613479425
• Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2012). Guest editors' introduction - Financial subjects: culture and materiality. Journal of Cultural Economy, 5(4), 369-373. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.703146
• Chima, O., & Langley, P. (2012). Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: Financialisation and the Management of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. Global Society, 26(4), 409-427. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2012.710595
• Langley, P., & Leaver, A. (2012). Remaking retirement investors: behavioural economics and occupational pension funds in the UK and USA. Journal of Cultural Economy, 5(4), 473-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2012.691893
• Langley, P. (2010). The performance of liquidity in the subprime mortgage crisis. New Political Economy, 15(1), 71-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563460903553624
• Langley, P. (2010). On the materiality of markets. Journal of Cultural Economy, 3(3), 395-402. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2010.506327
• Langley, P. (2009). Debt, discipline and government: Foreclosure and forbearance in the subprime mortgage crisis. Environment and Planning A, 41(6), 1404-1419. https://doi.org/10.1068/a41322
• Langley, P. (2008). Sub-prime mortgage lending: A cultural economy. Economy and Society, 37(4), 469-494. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140802357893
• Langley, P. (2008). Financialization and the consumer credit boom. Competition & Change, 12(2), 133-147. https://doi.org/10.1179/102452908x289794
• Langley, P. (2007). The uncertain subjects of Anglo-American financialization. Cultural critique, 65(Winter), 66-91. https://doi.org/10.1353/cul.2007.0009
• Langley, P. (2006). Securitising suburbia: The transformation of Anglo-American mortgage finance. Competition & Change, 10(3), 283-299. https://doi.org/10.1179/102452906x114384
• Langley, P. (2006). The making of investor subjects in Anglo-American pensions. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24(6), 919-934. https://doi.org/10.1068/d405t
• Langley, P. (2004). In the eye of the ‘perfect storm’: the final salary pensions crisis and financialisation of Anglo‐American capitalism. New Political Economy, 9(4), 539-558. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356346042000311164