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Type: Article
Title: Standards and SSOs in the contested widening and deepening of financial markets: The arrival of Green Municipal Bonds in Mexico City
Authors: Hilbrandt, Hanna 
Grubbauer, Monika 
Issue Date: Oct-2020
Keywords: Financialization; standards; development; green municipal bonds; Mexico City
Abstract: 
Particularly since the financial crisis of 2008, much has been written about the growing influence of finance in the development of cities in the global North. Today, financial markets also appear to be expanding southwards. A small but growing number of existing studies on the financialization of Southern cities helpfully explore how international investment changes urban development locally. Yet, they say less about the actors, procedures, and hurdles through which global market expansion is forged and expanded in the first place. In this paper, we examine the role of standards and standards-setting organizations in fostering market expansion and financial deepening. In particular, we highlight the efforts of standards-setting organizations in implementing a novel financial tool, green municipal bonds. Green municipal bonds are debt instruments that allow cities to raise capital through the issuance of bonds exclusively for investment in projects certified as sustainable. First employed by European, Canadian, and US cities, the paper traces the processes that led up to the issuance of these bonds in Mexico City, one of the first municipalities in the so-called ‘emerging markets’ to issue green municipal bonds. Our findings indicate that standards barely impacted project implementation; nevertheless, with the political efforts of standards-setting organizations, standards worked as vehicles through which infrastructures of markets, knowledge, and political support were built, legitimized, and secured. While these processes widened and deepened financialization, they also encountered challenges in terms of the long-term stabilization of these infrastructures and the upkeep of political support.
Subject Class (DDC): 710: Landschaftsgestaltung, Raumplanung
HCU-Faculty: Kultur der Metropole 
Journal or Series Name: Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 
Volume: 52
Issue: 7
Start page: 1415
End page: 1433
ISSN: 0308-518X
Publisher DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20909391
URN (Citation Link): urn:nbn:de:gbv:1373-repos-14284
Directlink: https://repos.hcu-hamburg.de/handle/hcu/1107
Language: English
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