The Post Crisis Transition : Towards New Investment Circuits ?

The recent Global financial crisis has marked an unprecedented separation between finance and real economy. This paper deals with the question of today’s transition within finance geography. It focuses on the transition process of the Swiss financial system after 2008 from institutional and territorial perspective. More specifically, this study investigates new investment circuits in Switzerland and attempts to understand to which extent they are connected to entrepreneurial activities at local and regional levels. Our main findings highlight that the Swiss case shows two opposite movements: “from the top”, i.e. Swiss pension fund sector and “from below”, i.e. regional private entrepreneurial investors. We will finally demonstrate that, because of the specific institutional framework, the current transition process in Switzerland is more likely to be driven by small regional actors, rather than by large institutional investors.