skip to content

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

 
Venue: 
Rooms 8 & 9, Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Event date: 
Wednesday, 10 October, 2018 - 17:00 to 18:30

China Research Seminar Series talk given by John Yasuda, Indiana University

Financialization describes a fundamental shift in capitalism, highlighting the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial elites in the economy. My project seeks to examine the process of financialization in relation to East Asia’s major stock markets including, Hong Kong, Seoul, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Taipei, and Tokyo. Specifically, it focuses on the development of “regulatory narratives,” which states employ to legitimate and propagate the growth of capital markets. This talk explores the following questions: (1) how do states in East Asia understand the stock market’s overall role in the economy; (2) what are the major political considerations governments must entertain as they establish their exchanges?; (3) how do political elites, market actors, and the investing public negotiate appropriate rules governing financial risk?; and (4) what are the major influences of stock market design in the region? The answers to these questions point to distinct pathways of financialization, highlighting the political challenges of building stock markets in an accelerated moment of global capitalism. By focusing on the development of these six stock exchanges, the project seeks to highlight the social construction of capital markets and the political ecosystems that enable them to thrive. The talk draws from archival research and over 60 interviews with regulators, asset managers, and financial analysts conducted during five-months of initial fieldwork in the region.

John Yasuda, from Indiana University, is spending part of his sabbatical here in Cambridge (at the Depatment of Politics and International Studies and St Catharine's College) to work on his next project on the emergence of East Asian stock markets. John's first major book was On Feeding the Masses: An Anatomy of Regulatory Failure in China, available at all good bookstores (and Amazon). John has just completed a first research trip to China for his next project.

Contact
Professor Hans van de Ven FBA: jjv10@cam.ac.uk