Das Finanzzentrum – ein Cluster?

Abstract

The financial centre - a cluster? A multiscalar approach and evidence from a case study of Frankfurt/Main: The cluster approach has recently been applied in various studies of financial centres, for example of London or Frankfurt. Its current use in financial geography, however, seems to be more metaphorical than analytical. This paper firstly discusses specific sectoral characteristics which make it difficult to simply apply a concept which was developed for the industrial sector to the financial economy. Secondly, value networks in the production processes of financial products indicate that only certain parts of the production process, i.e. knowledge-based, non-repetitive transactions in the network, require local proximities. Following Gordon/McCann in their reasoning on industrial clusters, it is argued that the cluster approach to financial centres calls for a multi-scalar perspective combining the juridical national territory, the advantages of a large urban agglomeration, and, finally, the network externalities of a district within the urban agglomeration, i.e. the “financial district”. This is demonstrated using the example of the financial centre of Frankfurt/RhineMain, a term which stands for the larger urban agglomeration.