TY - JOUR
T1 - Gangs in the markets : network-based cognition in China's futures industry
AU - SIU, Leung Sea, Lucia
PY - 2010/10/1
Y1 - 2010/10/1
N2 - Gangs in traditional Chinese society often arise from the lower social strata, where wealth, social status and kinship are inadequate to protect people from hostile or adverse environments. It is intriguing that modern futures investors in China, as owners of capital, would form a social structure that partially resembles the marginal groups of society. This paper portrays different social connectivity within the investor community of China’s commodity futures markets, including organized battle team, proximity cliques, capital factions based on geographical or industrial affiliations, and charismatic leaders. It also explores how a capital faction’s leadership, origins of capital and geographical location helps to shape some of its investment style and risk-taking characteristics. Based on empirical ethnographic fieldwork in 2005 and documentary research on China’s futures markets, the author argues that the textbook definitions of “hedgers”, “speculators”, “rational individuals” and “price discovery” are far from adequate to represent China’s markets. In reality the markets are made up by flexible socioeconomic aggregates continually interacting with each other, whose characteristics are shaped by social connectivity and background affiliation. Price movements are a collective result of the purposeful actions of the market people themselves, not some latent information waiting to be “discovered” outside the human world.
AB - Gangs in traditional Chinese society often arise from the lower social strata, where wealth, social status and kinship are inadequate to protect people from hostile or adverse environments. It is intriguing that modern futures investors in China, as owners of capital, would form a social structure that partially resembles the marginal groups of society. This paper portrays different social connectivity within the investor community of China’s commodity futures markets, including organized battle team, proximity cliques, capital factions based on geographical or industrial affiliations, and charismatic leaders. It also explores how a capital faction’s leadership, origins of capital and geographical location helps to shape some of its investment style and risk-taking characteristics. Based on empirical ethnographic fieldwork in 2005 and documentary research on China’s futures markets, the author argues that the textbook definitions of “hedgers”, “speculators”, “rational individuals” and “price discovery” are far from adequate to represent China’s markets. In reality the markets are made up by flexible socioeconomic aggregates continually interacting with each other, whose characteristics are shaped by social connectivity and background affiliation. Price movements are a collective result of the purposeful actions of the market people themselves, not some latent information waiting to be “discovered” outside the human world.
UR - http://commons.ln.edu.hk/sw_master/816
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84892597879&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Journal Article (refereed)
SN - 2180-3250
VL - 1
SP - 371
EP - 389
JO - International Journal of China Studies
JF - International Journal of China Studies
IS - 2
ER -