Respatialising Finance

InRespatialising Finance Sarah Hall uses the internationalisation of the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) to work through a sympathetic conceptual and empirical critique of prevailing analyses of International Financial Centres (IFCs). Her conceptual (re)framing stresses the politics, institutions and economics of IFCs and will be essential reading for all social scientists interested in the dynamism of contemporary finance and financial centres.

Professor Jane Pollard, Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, UK

Through detailed study of Chinese RMB internationalisation and combining analytical insights from economic geography, sociology, and international political economy, Sarah Hall shows why offshore networks anchored in territories such as the City of London are both core to global monetary and financial landscapes, and provide a key terrain for state power and politics.

Professor Paul Langley, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK

Respatialising Finance is one of the first detailed empirical studies of how and why London became the leading western financial centre within the wider Chinese economic and political project of internationalising its currency, the renminbi (RMB). This in-depth volume examines how political authorities in both London and Beijing identified the potential value of Londons international financial centre in facilitating and legitimising RMB internationalisation, and how they sought to operationalise this potential through a range of market-making activities.

The text features original data from on-the-ground research in London and Beijing conducted with financial and legal professionals working in RMB markets and offers an original theoretical approach that brings economic geography into closer dialogue with international political economy. Recent work on territory illustrates how financial centres are not simply containers and facilitators of global financial flows rather they serve as territorial fixes within the dynamic and crisis-prone nature of global finance.

Sarah Hall, PhD, is Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her research focuses on Londons international financial district and its relations with North America, Europe, and China. Her work has been published in a number of leading academic journals and the media. Professor Hall is the author ofGlobal Finance, joint Editor-in-Chief of the journalGeoforum, and a Senior Fellow with UK in a Changing Europe. She previously held a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship.

List of Figures vi

List of Tables vii

List of Abbreviations viii

Series Editors Preface ix

Acknowledgements x

1 Global Monetary Transformation and Respatialising the Geographies of Finance 1

Part I Theorising Changing Monetary and Financial Geographies 19

2 Thinking Geographically about States, Power and Politics in the Global Monetary System 21

3 Thinking Geographically about the International Financial System 43

Part II The Geographies of RMB Internationalisation in London 63

4 Respatialising Research in International Financial Centres 65

5 Londons Financial Centre as a Territorial Fix within RMB Internationalisation 87

6 Chinese Financial Labour Markets in Londons Financial Centre 110

7 Respatialising Financial Regulation Through Offshore RMB Market Making in London 137

8 RMB Internationalisation in Retrospect and Prospect: For Revitalised Geographies of Money and Finance 155

Index 171