The Internet and Financial Market Structure

Abstract

Financial markets are markets for information. As such, they are directly influenced by advances in information dissemination, storage, and processing associated with the commercial development of the Internet. On the other hand, given the long-standing centrality of information in financial markets, the consequences of the Internet for financial markets can be understood as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. This article provides a framework for understanding how the historical interplay between information technology and human capital has influenced financial market structure. In doing so, it sheds light on the recent reorganization of financial markets. The daring reader might infer implications for reorganization of product markets where the impact of the Internet is more abrupt. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.