Evolution of urban agglomeration financial network in China based on subdivision industry

Research on spatial patterns of financial services industry based on microcosmic financial enterprises layout data has recently become a hot topic for financial geographers. Employing the social network analysis and GIS tools, this paper investigates the evolution of China's financial network at the metropolitan scale in the last decades from the perspective of subdivision industry. Based on the longitudinal office distribution data of top financial enterprises in banking, insurance, and security during 1995 to 2015, the evolution pattern of China's financial network is explored from the aspects of spatial difference, spatial process, and spatial interaction. The results indicate that: (1) from the perspectives of banking and insurance, the spatial distribution of headquarter enterprises is relatively centralized and the financial network is relatively sparse within most urban agglomerations of central and western China. However, from the perspective of security, the headquarter enterprises are scattered in most urban agglomerations, but they have undergone frequent replacement. (2) From the perspectives of banking and insurance, the high-level financial network between urban agglomerations is relatively dense; however, the financial connections between urban agglomerations are more likely to be at a low level from the perspective of security. Besides the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which are well-known as core codes, other core nodes of banking and insurance are concentrated in coastal regions and hinterlands respectively, whereas other core nodes of security are evenly distributed in various areas. (3) The discrepancies in financial resources attraction and headquarters finance development among urban agglomerations in different industry perspectives are different in terms of both size and changing tendency. The difference among urban agglomerations from the perspective of security is the largest in financial resources attraction, but is the minimum in headquarters finance development. (4) The differences in geographic concentration, market concentration, and the main factors influencing industrial development among different industries are main reasons for the difference in the evolution pattern of the urban agglomeration financial network in different industry perspectives. © 2019, Science Press. All right reserved.