Dr Stefanos Ioannou
PhD
Senior Lecturer in Economics
Oxford Brookes Business School

Role
Stefanos Ioannou completed his PhD in Economics at University of Leeds in 2016, while previously he studied at Newcastle University and University of Athens. His main research interests are macroeconomics, banking and finance, and economic geography. Stefanos has published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic journals, including amongst others, Economic Geography; Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money; Urban Studies; and Review of Political Economy. He is member of the Post-Keynesian Economics Society and the Global Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo). At Oxford Brookes University he leads a number of modules on finance and development, international trade and international labour markets. He is also academic mentor to undergraduate students and a first aider. Prior to his employment at Oxford Brookes he worked at University of Oxford, for the interdisciplinary research project “Cities in Global Financial Networks: Finance and Development in the 21st Century”. Previously he lectured at University College Cork, where he taught advanced macroeconomics and finance.
Teaching and supervision
Modules taught
- Finance and Development
- International Trade
- International Labour Markets
Research
Projects as Principal Investigator, or Lead Academic if project is led by another Institution
- Small business lending in small island communities (01/06/2023 - 05/01/2025), funded by: British Academy, funding amount received by Brookes: £9,135
Publications
Journal articles
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Ioannou S, Wójcik D, 'Income Inequality, Finance, and Space: A Cross-Country Analysis'
Global Perspectives 4 (1) (2023)
ISSN: 2575-7350 eISSN: 2575-7350AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARTo extend the controversial literature on the finance-inequality nexus, we examine the determinants of income inequality in 131 developed and developing economies, in the period 1991- 2017. We consider a wide range of variables associated with domestic financial development, banking crises and financial globalization, including financial secrecy and offshore wealth. In addition, we examine whether the spatial centralization of the financial sector is associated in any way with income inequality. The results show that the larger the size of the financial sector in a country, the higher the level of inequality. Financial globalization, in all its facets, also appears to contribute to inequality. These findings are particularly robust for developed economies. Our analysis also shows that aspects of finance aggravating inequality are positively associated with the degree of geographical centralization of the financial sector.
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Ioannou S, 'Regional and municipal debt in the Eurozone: a cross-country analysis'
Regional Studies 57 (1) (2022) pp.97-111
ISSN: 0034-3404 eISSN: 1360-0591AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARThis paper analyses the development of sub-sovereign debt in the Eurozone, based on a sample of 58 regional and municipal governments for the period 2004–17. The findings show that when examined from the prism of sub-sovereign debt, Eurozone countries cannot be readily divided into core and periphery, as conventionally done nationally. For many countries, a significant domestic variegation in local economic conditions is identified. Driving forces in the rise of debt positions are also varied. Despite such variegations, the analysis also confirms the overarching role of national governments in setting the fiscal and financial boundaries within which local governments operate.
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Urban Michael A., Pažitka Vladímir, Ioannou Stefanos, Wójcik Dariusz, 'The Financial Geography of Resilience: A Case Study of Goldman Sachs'
Annals of the American Association of Geographers 112 (6) (2022) pp.1593-1613
ISSN: 2469-4452 eISSN: 2469-4460AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARFor all of its iconic character and controversial influence, Goldman Sachs has received rather shallow scrutiny in social sciences. This article combines an in-depth case study of Goldman Sachs with a theoretical contribution at the nexus of financial geography and evolutionary economic geography. We contend that spatial arbitrage and regulatory capture are fundamental to the organizational resilience of financial firms. Using empirical evidence, we further argue that financial centers’ adaptive resilience is a product of their strategic positioning in financial firms’ value chains. We formalize this contribution with a framework describing a set of paper, cyber, relational, and technical dimensions of financial centers’ resilience and emphasizing regulatory capture in firms’ response and adaptation to shocks. We deploy our framework in a case study of the evolution of Goldman Sachs between 1999 and 2017, focusing on how it contributed and adapted to the financial crisis of 2008–2009. Using original quantitative data and interviews, we shed light on how, as a product of the crisis, the firm unbundled its New York metro operations toward Salt Lake City and how the latter evolved from a brass-plate center to the bank’s second largest U.S. office.
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Ioannou Stefanos, Wójcik Dariusz, 'The limits to FinTech unveiled by the financial geography of Latin America'
Geoforum 128 (2022) pp.57-67
ISSN: 0016-7185AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADARTo address the paucity of research on the financial geography of Latin America and contribute to the emerging geographical literature on FinTech, we use quantitative financial data and qualitative insights from expert interviews, to explore the relationships between FinTech development and financial geography of the region, with focus on Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. We show that despite its fast growth driven by high costs of financial intermediation, policy of financial inclusion and financial regulation, FinTech in Latin America has thus far played out on the margins of the global FinTech industry and the margins of its financial systems, with limited impacts on financial inclusion. We argue that FinTech has not challenged but contributed to an already high level of concentration in the geographies of financial services in Latin America. This is affected by the proximity of FinTech firms to incumbent banks (which are active in FinTech), sources of capital and skilled labour, and reinforced by the fact that leading financial centres in Latin America are also the main centres of technology industry. Finally, we demonstrate that FinTech has not yet had a significant impact on the low level of financial integration in Latin America, with fragmentation determined by political, economic, and financial instability, combined with a lack of compatibility in financial regulation. Put together, our findings add to the literature that advocates a degree of scepticism about the impacts of FinTech on financial centres, if not the financial system overall.
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Ioannou S, Wójcik D, 'Was Adam Smith an economic geographer?'
GeoJournal 87 (2021) pp.5425-5434
ISSN: 0343-2521 eISSN: 1572-9893AbstractPublished here Open Access on RADAREconomic geographers typically associate Adam Smith with the pin factory, the division of labour, and the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. We show that a closer reading of The Wealth of Nations reveals a much richer and broader range of ideas, which we illustrate by focusing on six themes: methodology, the role of physical geography and land in development, urban scale, institutions, commercial centres, and financial geography. On commercial centres, for example, Smith offers a vivid elaboration of what causes a ‘home bias’ in international trade. Similarly, in a largely neglected part of the book, Smith offers a thorough set of reflections as to what turned Amsterdam into the leading financial centre of Europe during the seventeenth century and eighteenth centuries. Overall, we argue that in all these themes and across them, Smith offers insights valuable to contemporary economic geography, making the Wealth of Nations worthy a place in an anthology of the discipline.
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Ioannou S, Wojcik D, 'Finance, Globalization, and Urban Primacy'
Economic Geography 97 (1) (2021) pp.34-65
ISSN: 0013-0095 eISSN: 1944-8287AbstractPublished hereWe use data from 131 countries in the period 2000–14 to analyze the determinants of urban primacy, calculated as the share of the city with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in a country in the total GDP of that country. While prior research has largely neglected the role of financial factors, we demonstrate that urban primacy is related positively to the size of financial activity. In addition, currency depreciation in relation to the US dollar is related to lower urban primacy, while gross capital outflows are related to higher urban primacy. We find that trade openness—a key indicator of globalization—also coincides with higher urban primacy, but this relationship is statistically and economically less significant than that between finance and urban primacy. Among other factors, we show that urban primacy is smaller in countries with a large population, high population density, a large agricultural sector, and a federal political structure, and particularly high in countries where primate cities have seaport functions. Our main results hold in both developed and developing countries. We discuss a wide range of mechanisms through which finance can affect urban primacy, including agglomeration economies, proximity to power, access to capital, financialization, and financial instability. In short, finance has a crucial impact on the geographic distribution of economic activity.
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Ioannou S, Wojcik D, Pazitka V, 'Financial centre bias in sub-sovereign credit ratings'
Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money 70 (2021)
ISSN: 1042-4431 eISSN: 1873-0612AbstractPublished hereWe investigate whether credit rating agencies are biased towards areas with strong financial centre characteristics, using data for 259 areas from 39 countries for 2004–17. We employ a range of measurements of financial centre characteristics, including a financial centre index, the share of financial and business services in an area’s total employment, and revenues from investment banking. For all financial centre proxies, our results confirm the existence of a ‘financial centre bias’ that is statistically and economically significant. For example, cities present in the global financial centre index have a rating about a category higher than would be justified by fundamentals.
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Ioannou S, Wojcik D, 'Finance and growth nexus: An international analysis across cities'
Urban Studies 58 (1) (2021) pp.223-242
ISSN: 0042-0980 eISSN: 1360-063XAbstractPublished hereWe examine the relationship between finance and economic growth in the metropolitan areas of 75 countries at various stages of economic development in the period 2001–2015. Our analysis demonstrates an inverted-U shaped relationship between finance and growth. This relationship becomes even more significant in the areas of a country outside its largest financial centre, indicating that while these areas can benefit from financial development, they are also the most vulnerable. We show that large financial centres can have an impact on growth across their national economies, but in doing so they complement rather than replace local financial centres. Overall, our results highlight the risks associated with the excesses of financial development and lend evidence to support calls for more decentralised financial systems.
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Wojcik D, Ioannou S, 'COVID-19 and Finance: Market Developments So Far and Potential Impacts on the Financial Sector and Centres'
Journal of Economic and Human Geography 111 (3) (2020) pp.387-400
ISSN: 0040-747X eISSN: 1467-9663AbstractPublished hereThis paper offers an informed commentary on the actual and potential impacts of the pandemic on financial markets, sector and centres, grounded in literature on financial centres, the state-finance nexus, and trends affecting the landscape of finance since the global financial crisis. We expect a slowdown in new financial regulation, continued firm-level consolidation, and a continued rise of business services related to finance. The application of new financial technologies is likely to accelerate, affecting retail banking in particular, but will not necessarily be led by FinTech firms. Local and regional financial centres are likely to face larger challenges than leading international centres. As the panic and partial recovery in financial markets in March and April 2020 highlighted the significance of the international monetary hierarchy, with the US$ in the lead, a radical shift of financial power to Asia seems unlikely.
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Ioannou S, Wójcik D, Dymski G, 'Too-Big-To-Fail: Why Megabanks Have Not Become Smaller Since the Global Financial Crisis?'
Review of Political Economy 31 (3) (2019) pp.356-381
ISSN: 0953-8259 eISSN: 1465-3982AbstractPublished hereMore than ten years after the global financial crisis, what has happened to the ‘too-big-to-fail’ (TBTF) banks whose reckless behavior was among its preconditions, but which received public support and guarantees in the midst of that crisis? Insofar as this too-big-to-fail status helped create the crisis and then imposed costs on the rest of society, we would expect these banks to have shrunk. We investigate the evolution of 31 global-TBTF banks and find that their overall size has hardly recorded any substantial change. However, there is no sense of urgency in the flourishing post-crisis literature on TBTF banks about the need to contain their size; the prevalent view therein is that if properly regulated, the risks that arise from a financial system dominated by TBTF banks are manageable. This view rests on the same overly narrow theoretical underpinnings whose flaws were exposed in the crisis. We argue that too-big-to-fail banking is embedded in a set of self-reinforcing policies—consolidation, balance-sheet support through quantitative easing, favorable regulations, bank lobbying, and geo-economic and geo-political considerations—which explain why these banks have not shrunk and why they remain a threat to financial stability, well after the lessons of the crisis should have been learned.
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Ioannou S, Wojcik D, 'On financialization and its future'
Environment and Planning A 51 (1) (2019) pp.263-271
ISSN: 0308-518X eISSN: 1472-3409AbstractPublished hereBorn as a term with a critical connotation towards finance, financialization has been widely employed in social sciences, despite the vagueness often surrounding it. In this article we discuss the concept of financialization with a focus on three dimensions. First, we highlight the crucial role of theory in shaping the depth of one’s understanding of the term. Second, we discuss the merits and limitations of the term as a means for bringing together researchers from different communities. Third, we reflect on its future. We argue in particular that the various phenomena associated with financialization involve different boundaries and temporalities. These differences are important, first for appreciating the openness of possible outcomes, and second, for anticipating potential convergences in scholarly perceptions of financialization that might occur in the near future.
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Ioannou S, Mattos O, 'Taking a leap towards a real world macroeconomics teaching'
International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education 9 (4) (2018)
ISSN: 1757-5648 eISSN: 1757-5656AbstractPublished hereDespite the centrality of finance in the workings of the modern capitalist economy, macroeconomics is still taught with no serious consideration of monetary and financial dynamics. This has become even more puzzling in the light of the recent financial crisis. Our paper discusses a more pluralistic framework for teaching basic macroeconomics, inclusive of some of the most important ideas of Keynes on interest and money. The incorporation of Keynesian economics not only allows students to broaden their thinking in considering alternative answers to given questions; it also reshapes the questions themselves. In doing so, it changes the framework within which students come to think of policy. Focusing on the case of monetary policy, we point out the commonality between the mainstream teaching paradigm and the actual mindset that influences policy making. Furthermore, we discuss the ways in which the scope and aims of monetary policy are altered under a Keynesian/Minskyan framework.
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Ioannou S, 'Sovereign ratings, macroeconomic dynamics, and fiscal policy. Interactions within a stock flow consistent framework'
Metroeconomica 69 (1) (2018) pp.151-177
ISSN: 0026-1386 eISSN: 1467-999XAbstractPublished hereOperating in the context of deregulated financial markets, credit rating agencies do not only ‘provide an opinion’, but also affect macroeconomic dynamics. By utilizing a two-country stock flow consistent model that provides a representation of the Eurozone, the paper connects the movements of sovereign ratings with the dynamics of the financial market and the constraints on fiscal policy. With endogenous fiscal expenditure and an endogenous credit rating mechanism the model shows how following a recessionary shock, a rating downgrade can influence the financial constraints that surround a government, pushing it toward fiscal austerity and thereby deepening the already ongoing recession.
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Ioannou S, 'Credit Rating Downgrades and Sudden Stops of Capital Flows in the Eurozone'
Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy 8 (3) (2017)
ISSN: 1793-9933 eISSN: 1793-9941AbstractPublished hereThe current paper investigates the impact of sovereign ratings on sudden stops of capital in the context of the Eurozone. Our analysis focuses on the qualitative aspect of ratings on the hypothesis that such aspect has a concrete impact on capital movements. A panel probit model is utilized for our purposes. We distinguish between net and gross capital inflows, while we also draw a distinction between long-term and short-term oriented capital. Our results confirm the influence of sovereign ratings for the majority of our model specifications. They also appear to be most significant in the case of short-term flows.
Book chapters
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Ioannou S, 'Credit Rating Agencies in the Era of Neoliberal Capitalism' in Knox-Hayes J, Wójcik D (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Financial Geography, Routledge (2020)
ISBN: 9780815369738 eISBN: 9781351119061AbstractPublished hereCredit rating agencies (CRAs) have emerged as a core financial institution in neoliberal capitalism. This chapter outlines the history and current landscape of the credit ratings market; and provides some detailed commentary over selected stylized facts of the big-three CRAs. Main focus is on the corporate ownership, office location, and revenues. The moral hazard critique is not only the most common issue raised against the CRAs, but also a critique broadly adopted across social sciences, endorsed even by mainstream economics. The chapter describes the main aspects of credit rating methodology, discusses the macroeconomic effects of sovereign ratings in detail and presents the geographical distribution of these ratings around the globe. A particularly interesting aspect pointed out in Gibson et al. is the occurrence of doom-loops between sovereign credit ratings, sovereign interest rates, and bank ratings. The authors provide a brief elaboration of the contemporary geographical distribution of Moody’s sovereign ratings.
Conference papers
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Ioannou S, 'Post-Crisis European Banking and the Modern Financial Regulation Game'
(2019)
AbstractPublished hereIn this article we provide an overview of post-crisis developments in European banking, focusing particularly on the efforts to re-regulate the sector. Our discussion shows that despite the reforms on capital requirements and resolution planning, banks’ business model remains highly similar to the pre-crisis one. While proposals for structural reform were not absent from the debate- most notably, Liikanen report’s proposal on ring-fencing and European Commission’s proposal on the prohibition of proprietary trading- these were continuously compromised, with their most toothy parts being ultimately abandoned. For conceptualising these trajectories, the dimension of power needs to be taken into consideration. The influence of banking lobby on European regulation, whether by day to day engagement, or by means of revolving doors with EU regulators, is a key component for understanding how the modern financial regulation game has played out in the continent from the time of the crisis onwards.
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Dymski G, Ioannou S, 'Greece’s Economic Strategy and Eurozone Crisis: TAVA.'
(2014)
AbstractPublished hereThis paper explores the elements of economic strategy for a national government taking office in Greece under the constraints imposed by Eurozone membership, even while hoping to transcend and transform those constraints. We first review some of the empirical and institutional economic realities faced both by Greece and the member nations of the Eurozone; while these are well known, it is important to recognize the parameters within which our considerations must unfold. We will then list some of the constraints that arise under the conditions of neoliberal global capitalism that provides what passes for order in the international economic system at the present time. We next turn to the problem of national economic strategy directly. As indicated, there are various alternatives, even if no one of them can eliminate all vestiges of the crisis that has made necessary a dramatically new policy direction for Greece and for Europe.
Other publications
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Sawyer M, Ioannou S, 'Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development: An Overview.', (2017)
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Ioannou S, 'The Political Economy of Credit Rating Agencies. The Case of Sovereign Ratings.', (2016)
AbstractPublished hereThis thesis investigates the social and economic importance of Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs), concentrating on the case of sovereign ratings. By viewing CRAs as an influential institution within the context of neoliberalism and financialization, the thesis offers some new insights regarding the way sovereign ratings are formed and the way they come to affect macroeconomic processes and outcomes. The experience of the European Monetary Union (Eurozone) serves as the case study. The recent and still ongoing European crisis and the flawed institutional structure of the Eurozone make this case study to be of special interest. The thesis consists of three broad parts. The first part sets the background of the thesis. As such it contains some analytical reflections on how to conceptualize CRAs. It also includes a chapter that discusses in detail the institutional arrangements of the Eurozone and the associated stylized facts. The second part consists of two econometric chapters. By employing a dataset based on the original twelve Eurozone countries and on the period from 1999 to 2012, the first chapter decomposes the determinants of sovereign ratings and seeks for evidence of systematically panicked reactions from CRAs. In turn, the second chapter utilizes a panel probit model and investigates the statistical and economic significance of sovereign ratings in explaining episodes of extreme capital flow movements. The third part establishes a two country stock flow consistent model and explores the linkages between sovereign rating movements, the financial market and the constraints for fiscal policy. By separating between a weak country and a strong country, the model shows how following a recessionary shock, the rating downgrade of the weak country can affect the liquidity preference of investors. Such influence deepens the already ongoing recession by amplifying the financial constraints the weak government faces and by forcing it to implement fiscal austerity.