Theurillat, Thierry

2014, Theurillat, Thierry, Rérat, Patrick, Crevoisier, Olivier

2017-9-30, Theurillat, Thierry, Crevoisier, Olivier, Salomon, Victoriya

Cet article s’inscrit en géographie de la finance et montre, à l’aide de diverses études de cas, comment l’industrie financière, en s’appropriant le concept de développement durable de manière particulière, a construit sa propre approche de la « valeur financière durable » dans le cadre des fonds d’investissement socialement responsable (ISR). Il explique la manière dont l’industrie financière auto-valide son action en matière de finance « durable » par le recours à des organisations (agences de notation extra-financière et ONGs), des personnalités (experts, leaders d’opinion) ou des institutions (organisations internationales) qui, par leur réputation ou leur position, légitiment la « valeur durable ». Or, si ces acteurs parviennent à animer le débat médiatique, scientifique et politique, ils restent largement sous l’influence de l’industrie financière et ne remettent pas en cause l’essence même des produits financiers, la coupure au territoire. L’absence de territorialisation et de contextualisation territoriale empêchent toute approche forte de la durabilité, fondée sur les acteurs locaux et une opérationnalisation sur un territoire donné.

2014, Theurillat, Thierry, Rérat, Patrick, Crevoisier, Olivier

Revealing the parties, the processes and the institutions and, consequently, both the diversity and contingency of the real estate markets, the existing increasing literature emphasises the contemporary numerous links and interdependencies between real estate, land value, planning and town planning policy and even the financial system. This paper is an attempt to understand all the real estate markets, from the most peripheral ones, where the urban rent is the lowest, to the most dense city centres. To gain a better understanding of the real estate market, a process of firstly deconstruction and then reconstruction is used. The process of deconstruction involves identifying various market trends according to property type (principally residential buildings), players and institutions, territorial situations and temporalities based on research conducted in Switzerland. We then developed a meta-synthesis inspired by Fernand Braudel whose works put as much emphasis on day-to-day economic activity as on long-term activity, and on local as well as global issues.

2016-2-1, Theurillat, Thierry, Vera Büchel, Nelson, Crevoisier, Olivier

This article proposes three ideal types of ‘anchoring of finance capital into the city’, i.e. the way in which capital, as it is valued in financial markets, is transformed into real capital and vice versa. Some contexts will allow market finance s visions of the city to become reality without great alteration, and this produces the ‘financialised city’. In this case, the value of the city corresponds to trading on the financial markets and largely depends on the financial operators’ comparative and mimetic criteria. Second, the ‘entrepreneurial city’ corresponds to a tangible and localised vision of the city, outside the trading rooms. This requires interactions between intermediary and allied actors so that urban value can be translated into real profits and tangible urban objectives while mobilising market finance. Third, some contexts may promote debate, the creation of interdependencies and the genesis of multiple externalities, particularly around major urban development projects. This is what we call the ‘negotiated city’. Here, urban value depends much more directly, and more exclusively, on more or less complementary interactions between local and non-local actors, users, consumers, public actors, tourists, etc.

2014, Theurillat, Thierry, Crevoisier, Olivier

Sustainability and the anchoring of capital: negotiations surrounding two major urban projects in Switzerland, Regional Studies. This article deals with the anchoring of mobile financial capital in the city and urban sustainability. Illustrated by a case study in the Swiss context, it develops the theory that new forms of negotiation are appearing around urban projects. Development/construction firms are playing a central role: they are capable of evaluating and translating the multiple dimensions of a project and certain sustainability challenges into financial terms, in a way that permits the anchoring of capital in the city. In parallel, the issue of sustainability depends greatly on the capacity of the local actors to negotiate with the promoters of urban projects.

2008, Theurillat, Thierry, Corpataux, José, Crevoisier, Olivier

Theories on corporate governance have developed in line with the development of the financial markets and the increasing power of institutional investors. Indeed, the financial markets' power can be measured by the ability of shareholders, and of institutional investors in particular, to influence businesses and their managers. A number of reforms have been implemented in several countries, Switzerland included, in order to strengthen shareholders' powers. Making specific reference to Swiss case studies, this paper aims to create a better understanding of the role of institutional investors in corporate governance. Indeed, Switzerland is paradoxical in that it is generally considered Rhenish, with banks and families taking a leading role in controlling big business (David et al. 2004; Windolf & Nollert 2001), whilst developing a pension fund system which, since the mid-1980s, has attracted considerable funds and is still experiencing strong growth. How do these two approaches, traditionally at opposite ends of the spectrum as far as the subject's literature is concerned, reconcile themselves in the Swiss market?

2012, Theurillat, Thierry, Crevoisier, Olivier

2010, Theurillat, Thierry, Corpataux, José, Crevoisier, Olivier

Financialization is a major trend in Western economies. This paper shows, on the one hand, how it changes the management criteria and, on the other hand, the limits to financialization in the property sector. Between 1992 and 2004, about 15% of Swiss pension funds' wealth was invested in property. As far as their investment policy is concerned, pension funds have two choices. First, they can directly own, and have management responsibility for, the properties in their portfolios. Alternatively, they can buy shares in mainly Zurich-based investment vehicles. In the first case, pension funds require staff with the relevant expertise along with the knowledge of property markets. Investments have a regional focus and are assessed internally by the funds. In the second case, pension funds are merely investors and investment appraisals and comparisons are made on the basis of market criteria such as yield, diversification in relation to risk and liquidity. In this case, property investments focus solely on the country's main urban areas.

2021-5-9, Jeannerat, Hugues, Theurillat, Thierry

In the 1980s, Switzerland’s Jura Arc region was a globally competitive ‘new industrial space’ in the Third Industrial Revolution’s flexible accumulation regime based on information and communication technology (ICT) and automation processes. Recently, this nowadays ‘old industrial space’ has been experiencing the implementation of Industry 4.0. Caught between the use of existing productive assets and the development of platform-based market ecosystems, this region illustrates the challenges inherent in implementing ‘forking innovation’, which requires the development not only of new business models, but also of collaborative and investment models in order to scale up and increase local value capture.

2010, Theurillat, Thierry, Corpataux, José, Crevoisier, Olivier