Geography and Finance: study of the international financial system from its main financial centers and networks of flows

• Grant number: 17/08857-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Effective date (Start): July 31, 2017
• Effective date (End): January 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Betioli Contel
• Grantee: Fabio Betioli Contel
• Host Investigator: Dariusz Wojcik
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: University of Oxford, England

Abstract

This project aims to establish a critical analysis of the functioning of the world's main financial centers, as well as the material and informational networks that allow these centers to function in a systemic way. In addition to defining what are and how these "epicenters" of global financial capitalism work, we will try to identify what types of "geographic fixes" makes them (headquarters of large official and private banks, multilateral financial institutions, clearing houses, stock exchanges, pension funds, insurance companies, consulting firms, etc.) and how these institutions operate. It will be of fundamental importance for the project to also analyze the two main global messaging networks, namely the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) - which allow a huge daily transfers of funds and other financial assets (in addition to clearing and settlement of operations carried out on commodities and stock exchanges). Finally, it is worth mentioning that we will investigate how the metropolis of the Latin American countries are included in this international division of labor, highlighting three of them: São Paulo, Mexico City and Buenos Aires.