The "End of Geography" in Financial Services? Local Embeddedness and Territorialization in the Interest Rate Swaps Industry

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4043369
AutoresPierre Agnes (Macquarie University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2000
Volumen76
Número4
Páginas347
Fecha de publicación2000-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEconomic Geography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0095 • E-ISSN: 1944-8287
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/144391
OpenAlexW4249838327
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas31
Referencias citadas23

This paper provides evidence that the globalization of financial services has not undermined the importance of local embeddedness in world financial centers, among global banks. Using qualitative data from interviews with senior bankers in the interest rate swaps (derivatives) industry in Australia, in this paper I demonstrate the importance of spatial relationships and processes of local embeddedness in the production of swaps. Local embeddedness is attributable to the rapid exchange of financial information in formal dealing networks that serve as central information sources, enabling dealers to formulate a "market feel" that influences their dealing strategies. Information interpretation and decision making in dealing processes and specialist financial labor provide the foundations for the product-based learning orientation of swaps dealing. Dealing networks are underpinned by social relationships, requiring face-to-face interaction that is facilitated by spatial proximity. Although the global swaps industry is dominated by multinational banks, the centrality of these embedded networks impedes globalization in interest rate swaps dealing. The global swaps industry comprises an international network of highly localized but interconnected operations based in world financial centers

Business · Centrality · Economic geography · Economics · Embeddedness · Financial services · Financial system · Globalization · Interest rate · Market economy · Multinational corporation · Social science · Sociology · Banking stability, regulation, efficiency · Corporate Finance and Governance · Finance · Global Financial Regulation and Crises · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism