The best of both worlds: scale economies and discriminatory policies in London’s global financial centre

From the early 1960s onwards London has managed to vie with New York for the top spot as an international financial centre. Ever since then, London has reigned as a leading global financial hub, despite not having behind it anything like the political or economic backing enjoyed by New York. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by building on Kindleberger’s classic analysis of financial centres as international hubs that arise due to economic, geographic and infrastructural advantages, and more recent theories of specialized financial centres which suggest that financial centres deploy discriminatory business practices in order to compete with the scale economy-based centres. Our central claim is that London’s continuing financial supremacy can be traced to the way that the opposing ‘economic’ and ‘political’ sets of criteria necessary for a financial centre are here inextricably fused together in a mutually reinforcing dynamic. Three case studies are used to support this claim: the market for international loans and deposits; the forex (FX) and over the counter (OTC) derivatives markets; and the area of asset and collateral management.     

A dynamic analysis of the income–pollution relationship in a two-country setting

Economic Change and Restructuring - This research explores the presence of the income–pollution relationship in a dynamic two-country setting. We argue that the initial conditions of an...     

Analysing High Technology Diffusion and Public Transference Programs: The Case of the European Game Program

This paper will try to contribute to the understanding of public programs supporting high technology diffusion and transference. The framework utilised will combine the theory of technology and innovation diffusion and the use of value mapping methodology. The article provides empirical evidence on the variables, which contribute to filling some research gaps on the assessment of high tech diffusion programs. For this we have utilised the evaluation of the GAME initiative, part of the European Commission IV Research Framework Programme. The objective of this program was to diffuse microelectronics technology among Spanish firms. Using one hundred set cases and employing multivariable analysis methods it was found that a model could be built with two multivariable constructs to explain and understand technology diffusion, absorption and transference flows. In addition, the model is useful for evaluating technology dissemination using the diffusion model to measure its social impact. The statistical methodology applied, as a complement to value mapping, provides a robustness in the results which is not normally furnished by classical evaluation methods. It also reinforces value mapping as an adequate tool for high tech cases with certain modifications to the original approach. The␣latter is due to the uncertainty of technology disruption curves and change, as well as to the changing conditions in the economies of scale.