We assess Euro Area financial integration correcting for the role of "onshore offshore financial centers" (OOFCs) within the Euro Area. The OOFCs of Luxembourg, Ireland, and the Netherlands serve dual roles as both hubs of investment fund intermediation and centers of securities issuance by...

Qianhai - an innovation park in Shenzhen - has the possibility of boosting innovation in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and in the wider region. This paper reviews the existing evidence about which policies have promoted profitable innovation in the Qianhai region (Hong Kong and Shenzhen) in the past. We...

Investment funds hold a disproportionately larger fraction of domestic relative to foreign stocks. Stock market development and familiarity (language and distance) are considered key determinants for home bias. The literature neglects however that investors often invest in foreign funds...

What role does polyarchy (and thus increased democracy) play in aiding the development of an international financial centre? We find support for decades of theorising, in the globalization literatures as well as in others, that some jurisdictions use autocracy (less polyarchy) to help grow out...

Launched in 2018, the Astana International Financial Center (AIFC) aims to establish a leading international financial center for financial services in Astana, as well as to attract foreign investment and support the growth and development of Kazakhstan and the region. Drawing from a model...

Assessing European financial integration has proved difficult because of complex financial intermediation activities carried out in some European financial centres (Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) whose scale has grown enormously over time. We refer to these three countries as "onshore...

We study the effects of negative interest rate policies (NIRP) on the transmission of monetary policy through cross-border lending. Using bank-level data from international financial centres - the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Ireland - we examine how NIRP in the economies where banks have their...

We study the effects of negative interest rate policies (NIRP) on the transmission of monetary policy through cross-border lending. Using bank-level data from international financial centres (IFCs) – the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Ireland – we examine how NIRP in the economies where banks...

What role does polyarchy (and thus increased democracy) play in aiding the development of an international financial centre? We find support for decades of theorising that some jurisdictions use autocracy (less polyarchy) to help grow out their financial centres. We look at the growth of these...

We reassess the pattern of Euro Area financial integration adjusting for the role of “onshore offshore financial centers” (OOFCs) within the Euro Area. While the Euro Area records large levels of international investment both within and outside of the currency union, much of these flows are...

Several countries in Asia and Middle East established new age International Financial Centres e.g. Singapore, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar to name a few. India, which is one of the largest and fastest growing major economies in the world, established its maiden International Financial Services Centre...

This paper considers the question of how Brexit will affect the City of London from a long-term perspective, putting the changes induced by Brexit into the context of the City's historical evolution over the past century. This perspective permits us to see that the City has continued to thrive...

This paper examines the impacts of Brexit as an external shock to European financial centre relations. In particular, it studies the changing nature of Paris-London financial relations post Brexit. Early on in the Brexit process, Paris was not understood as the most likely European centre to...

This paper responds to Bathelt and Li's (2020) call for selecting more appropriate methods and improving their rigour by evaluating the feasibility of using factorial surveys to anticipate future relocation behaviour. By utilising a case study approach, focussing on Brexit and the UK FinTech...

Financial sanctions, which aim to economically hurt a target by restricting its access to financial assets and markets, require the ability to identify who owns an asset. Although experts have long claimed that offshore financial centres that offer secrecy ('tax havens') undermine sanctions by...

This working paper is written by Desislava Andreeva (European Central Bank), Andra Coman (European Central Bank), Mary Everett (Central Bank of Ireland), Maren Froemel (Bank of England), Kelvin Ho (Hong Kong Monetary Authority), Simon Lloyd (Bank of England), Baptiste Meunier (European Central...

We study the effects of negative interest rate policies (NIRP) on the transmission of monetary policy through cross-border lending. Using bank-level data from international financial centres – the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Ireland – we examine how NIRP in the economies where banks have...

In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot deduced that no single culprit was responsible for a murder on the eponymous train. In this article, which is intended to serve as an aide memoire to assess anticipated reforms, we similarly reason that there is no single suspect...

We researched 130 financial centres for this edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 33). The number of centres in the main index has increased to 120, with the inclusion of Minneapolis/St Paul. There are 10 associate centres awaiting potential inclusion in the main index.The average...

This paper studies price discovery in Nikkei 225 markets through the nonlinear smooth transition price adjustments between spot and future prices and across all three futures markets. We test for smooth transition nonlinearity and employ an exponential smooth transition error correction model...

London's preeminence as a foreign exchange trading center is of recent vintage. Before World War I, there was little demand for foreign currencies by British banks, firms and investors, which conducted the majority of their cross-border transactions in sterling. Foreign currency transactions...

The thirty-first edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 31) was published on 24 March 2022. GFCI 31 provides evaluations of future competitiveness and rankings for 119 financial centres around the world. The GFCI serves as a valuable reference for policy and investment...

In February 2021 the Treasury Committee issued a call for written evidence on the broader question of the future of financial services in the UK. The timing of this call for evidence shows the urgency brought by two coinciding situations: one being the post-Brexit scenario and the attendant...

With a novel database, we examine the evolution of capital flows to the periphery since the collapse of the Bretton Woods System in the early 1970s. We decompose capital flows into global, regional, and idiosyncratic factors. In contrast to previous findings, which mostly use data from the...

Excessive financial secrecy facilitates illicit financial flows, which constitute a major developmental challenge for low-income economies and cause significant tax revenue losses for governments around the world. In this paper we estimate the semi-elasticity of cross-border financial assets to...

We study the pattern of volatility of gross issuance in international capital markets since 1980. We find several short-lived episodes of high volatility. Over the long run, however, volatility has declined, suggesting that international financial integration has not made financial markets more...

To “crack down” on tax havens and offshore financial centers, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has promoted an internationally agreed tax standard of exchange of information on request since 2009. Using a difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the...

London's preeminence as a foreign exchange trading center is of recent vintage. Before World War I, there was little demand for foreign currencies by British banks, firms and investors, which conducted the majority of their cross-border transactions in sterling. Foreign currency transactions...

Brexit and the rise of China as a leading international economic power have revived discussions about the geography of banking centres. This paper analyses the geographical evolution of banking centres since the 1970s, based on a database constructed from a ranking of the top banks in the world...

In February 2021 the Treasury Committee issued a call for written evidence on the broader question of the future of financial services in the UK. The timing of this call for evidence shows the urgency brought by two coinciding situations: one being the post-Brexit scenario and the attendant...

Financial geography is concerned with the roles of finance, money, and markets in the restructuring of contemporary capitalism, and how these changes have uneven impacts across space. Studies focus on the ways in which space and place are mobilized in shaping financial decisions, allocation of...

Tokyo is conspicuous for its now decades-long absence in the headlines of global financial news. In this article, we revisit the evolution of Tokyo as an international financial centre through the lens of Global Financial Networks (GFN). Drawing on insights from high-level interviews, we present...