The financialization of the grain market in post-convertibility Argentina:

the case of the brokerage firms (correacopios)

Abstract

In the following work, the transformations of the grain market in the post-convertibility period are analyzed, based on the emergence and expansion of a novel actor: the broker-dealer “correacopio”. We will argue that this phenomenon is linked to a process of financialization of the agro-commercial chain and grain exportation due to institutional transformations that occurred in the regulation of the capital market. Originally intermediaries, their activity increasingly aimed at obtaining financial gains based on leveraging produced by holding grains and offering a growing range of financial products and services. We argue that this is a case of "reverse financialization", which occurs when previously existing actors give increasing weight to financial practices.