The “End of Geography” in Financial Services? Local Embeddedness and Territorialization in the Interest Rate Swaps Industry*
通过澳大利亚利率互换行业银行家的访谈数据，证明全球金融服务并未削弱地方嵌入性的重要性，地方网络中的信息交换和面对面互动仍主导交易策略，阻碍了该行业的完全全球化。
Abstract: 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.