The starting assumption of The End of Geography
was that money is primarily an item of information governed by rules. Money is therefore
shaped by the development and adoption of information
and communication technologies (ICTs)
(how the information is managed, and to a degree
the very nature of the information) and regulation
(how information is ruled). Therefore, one driver
behind the ‘end of geography’ was the anticipated
continued increase in computational power and
improvements in communications technology: the
development and adoption of ICTs. However, the
development and adoption of ICTs is a necessary
but not sufficient condition for an ‘end of geography’
world. It is possible to imagine a world in
which ICTs have advanced and been adopted to
make an end of geography world feasible but where
there are controls in place—e.g. capital controls—
that restrict financial flows. Thus, financial liberalization
(deregulation) is also required to ‘end’
geography. Together, the development and adoption
of ICTs and deregulation have allowed capital
to flow much more freely than ever before and have
led to a world consistent with that laid out in The
End of Geography. This paper argues that these
factors remain critical shapers of the geography of
finance, and through a set of alternative scenarios
will suggest how far geography may continue to be
eroded in the future.