Module description
This module explores the City of London as a global financial centre within a wider global financial architecture. Using a historical method to understand the present-day, it begins with an examination of the long history of the City of London as a centre for modern financial instruments and markets. Next, it explores how the Square Mile becomes a political institution within the domestic and increasingly international formation of capital markets. The second half the module positions the City within a network of Global Financial Centres (GFCs) and explores the political, economic, and socio-cultural connections between these urban financial cities as spatial concentration of financial capital and markets. The purpose of this module is to map the historical on to the present-day by examining The City of London as a global financial centre, and the many overlapping political, economic, historical and cultural relations that materialise within the Square Mile to make it a political powerful force within the global political economy, both past and present.
*Please note that module information is provisional and may change from year to year.
Suitable for economics and international management students
Assessment details
One policy pitch (10 minutes) (15%) and one 3000 word policy report (85%)
Educational aims & objectives
To provide an understanding of how the City of London came to become one of the major global financial centres in the international political economy. The main focus is on mapping history onto the present to understand how the City of London’s contemporary power is derived from its history and, thus, shapes its contemporary global position. This module seeks to give students an in-depth understanding of key empirical topics and conceptual frameworks for evaluating them.
The course has four main aims:
- Provide the scope for in-depth understanding of the City of London and the role of global financial cities in the contemporary global economy
- Broaden students’ understanding of international political economy by learning how an in-depth case study of the City of London provides an empirical frame to understand the global financial system as an object of theories of international political economy
- Give students a detailed understanding of the technical aspects of global financial markets, at the local and global level
- Demonstrate how IPE is a method of study that equips students with the means to connect theory with empirical study.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course students should have achieved:
- An understanding of the City of London as a global financial city and the different theoretical understandings of its significance in the global economy
- A knowledge and understanding of the major policy issues that impact the City of London and shapes its role in the contemporary global political economy
- Through their work in assessed policy report or state-of-the-art review essay, students will learn to synthesize complex information into a coherent account of a major issues, whether in policy circles or academic debates.
- The research essay affords students an opportunity to explore a topic in more depth, whether its theory, method or evidence- focused, this assignment asks the student to curate knowledge of a specific area of global finance.
Teaching pattern
Two hours per week, one lecture and one seminar