The nexus of professional service practices in Chinese financial centres

ABSTRACT

Bringing together work within economic geography and regional science, this paper argues that to develop a more sophisticated theoretical understanding how international financial centres (IFCs) are evolving, an approach that conceptualizes the nexus of mid-level economic practices within and between professional service firms and sectors has considerable merit. Drawing upon theoretical work on relationality and place, it argues that the IFC as a place is instrumental in shaping a nexus of professional service practices that produce particular economic outcomes. It develops this argument by presenting research into professional service industries in two Chinese IFCs: Hong Kong and Beijing.

KEYWORDS:

• professional services
• China
• global cities
• finance
• Hong Kong
• Beijing

JEL:

• O10
• O16
• O53
• P25

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Andrew Jones https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7340-6499

Notes

1. The research project was funded by the British Academy. See the funding section for further details.

Additional information

Funding

The author thanks the British Academy for supporting the research presented in this paper, which was funded through a British Academy Small Grant [number SG113017].