Description

In any listing of the world’s top international financial centres, Hong Kong takes a prominent place. How secure is that place, and what factors increase the odds that it will remain in the first tier of IFCs? Based on extensive fieldwork and comparative analysis, this study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Hong Kong’s IFC and draws out the implications for Hong Kong of recent developments on the Mainland. Notwithstanding rapidly changing regional and international markets, Hong Kong’s resilient financial sector remains rooted in distinctive social and political foundations. The strategic challenge for both the public sector and the private sector is to bolster those foundations without compromising that resilience.

Dr. Louis W. Pauly holds the Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Governance at the University of Toronto, where he also directs the Centre for International Studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs. A graduate of Cornell University, the London School of Economics, New York University, and Fordham University, he has been a visiting professor at Oxford University, Northwestern University, and Osaka City University. Before his appointment as a professor in Toronto, he held management positions in the Royal Bank of Canada, won an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, and served on the staff of the International Monetary Fund. His publications include Global Ordering: Institutions and Autonomy in a Changing World (UBC Press, 2009), Complex Sovereignty: Reconstituting Political Authority in the Twenty-First Century (University of Toronto Press, 2005), and The Myth of the Global Corporation (Princeton University Press, 1998). With Emanuel Adler, he edits International Organization, a top-ranked journal in the fields of international relations and international political economy.