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Papers by Jing Wang
Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies, 2021
Digital financial technologies or so-called fin-techs have reshaped the financial practices world... more Digital financial technologies or so-called fin-techs have reshaped the financial practices worldwide. Around the year 2014 when fin-tech just came into shape and was primarily run by IT corporations or start-ups, it was normally considered “alternative finance”—the non-mainstream, or the supplement to the traditional finance managed by banks. While banks run as the dominant entities in traditional finance and get financial licenses from the government, the regulators often consider fin-tech companies as informational agencies rather than financial intermediaries. However, in less than five years, almost all the major banks have set up a department or business
sector to develop their fin-tech businesses. In the meantime,
some of the leading fin-tech companies, (e.g., Ant Financial) are considered the most valuable companies in the world (Reuters, 2018). How have digital technologies played a transforming role in the nancial domain? In addition to enhancing efficiency and innovation, what are the social and cultural consequences that are often ignored amid academic and public discussions? This chapter sets its foundation in these two questions and studies fin-techs through a critical lens. Rather than finding fault with the established scholarly thoughts, it takes critique as a way of alternative thinking, which has three specific prongs. First, it invites the researchers in economics and finance studies to shift their focus from theorization and modeling to the social contexts in which these theories and models are applicable, and thus enables the conversations between the classic literature and the interdisciplinary studies. Second, it invites financial practitioners to alter their focus. In addition to drilling on the returns of specic nancial products, they need to understand the social, political, and cultural settings of financial industries. This switch will help them to develop more sustainable financial products and services. Last but not least, the critical lens aims at showing the large public the pitfalls of corporate-dominated finance which has seldom been discussed in the popular business and financial news.
The China Quarterly, 2020
This article examines the roles that digital technologies have played in propelling the shifts of... more This article examines the roles that digital technologies have played in propelling the shifts of financial governance which have been led by the Chinese Communist Party and enacted by a wide spectrum of regulative actors. Based on analyses of the laws, policies and regulations surrounding digital financial technologies, or so-called fintechs, as well as in-depth interviews with government officials and fintech business executives, I argue that the proliferation of fintechs challenged the existing regulatory schemes defined by the Central Bank and the State Council. This forced a reconsideration of the Chinese government's hegemonic strategies in governing the rapidly changing financial industries. While digital technologies have been promoted to accomplish the goals set by the Party for financial marketization and modernization, a set of institutions including regulatory, organizational and normative rules have been developed to strengthen the Party's control over the digitization of finance. This contradiction is pivotal to understanding the Party's financial policymaking in the digital age.
The Political Economy of Communication, 2018
Data-driven technologies and platform economies have been widely employed by Chinese companies in... more Data-driven technologies and platform economies have been widely employed by Chinese companies in a variety of business sectors. In the past decade, these digital applications have profoundly restructured economic development and power relations in Chinese society. This article examines how the promotions of fintech media and communication technologies for transactions, loans, investments and many other financial practices–engender and enlarge Alibaba’s digital financial platform, Ant Financial, the largest digital financial company in China. From a political economy of communication perspective, we consider Ant Financial as a product of data-centric corporate convergence in which fintech media have extracted user data from Alibaba’s e-commerce and digital payment platforms and utilized this data to drive Alibaba’s growth in financial businesses. The consolidation of multiple platforms has transformed financial industries, challenged policy and regulatory regimes, and reshaped the cultures of finance in China. The convergence paradigm underpins the digital, technology-driven logic facilitated by the state in resource allocation and policy-making. The government’s supportive role is a vital condition for the rise of Chinese fintech giants such as Baidu Finance, Ant Financial, Tencent Finance, and Jingdong Finance.
Telecommunications Policy
China's financial industries started the process of marketization only two decades ago, but by 20... more China's financial industries started the process of marketization only two decades ago, but by 2017 its financial technology or fin-tech sector had taken half of the global market. The exponential diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Chinese financial contexts have generated new organizational structures and socio-political relations that have the capacity to change China's position in the world economy. Drawing upon the sociological concept of institutionalization, this paper examines how the Chinese state has integrated ICT diffusion in its formal policies and its informal rules in China's financial development since 1991. Further, it addresses the political and socio-economic consequences of these developments. Based on the analyses of government documents and sources, trade journals, and statistic data from business databases, this paper divides the Chinese institutionalization of financial technologies into three stages and identifies the primary actors and paradigms for ICT diffusions in each stage. ICT diffusion has been constitutive but also disruptive to the existing financial policies, instrumental to the commercialization of state-owned banks, and has gradually transformed into a set of formal and informal rules accepted by a network of professionals, corporations, and government agencies. The institutionalization of ICT diffusion has engendered the continuous adjustment of financial policies and propelled innovations in China's financial economy.
Communication and the Public
The financial sector in China is well known as a government-dominated hierarchy, and the access t... more The financial sector in China is well known as a government-dominated hierarchy, and the access to financial services has been controlled primarily by the state-run banks. Fin-tech businesses or so-called “Internet finance,” in China have included new actors such as Internet companies, small and medium enterprises, and small lay investors in the
financial regime. The new entrants’ technology-mediated interactions with the government engendered new politicoeconomic relations within and beyond the market, in the cyberspace and in everyday life. How have the Chinese modes of financial inclusion reconfigured the power relations between the state, corporations, and the investing public
in China? Through the political-economic analyses of three specific forms of fin-tech businesses—third-party payment, peer-to-peer lending, and money market fund this article argues that Chinese fin-techs have enabled a broader societal participation to investment practices and empowered Internet corporations alongside the state-controlled financial systems. Thus, such an inclusion is less about the “inclusive finance” endorsed by the World Bank for the underrepresented
social groups’ accesses to financial services. It is more of a technology-facilitated financialization initiated by the state, promoted by information technology companies, and popularized among small investors. Rather than leading to the decentralization of financial power, China’s fin-tech has formed a higher level of concentration of financial capital controlled by the Chinese oligopoly Internet corporations. Moreover, the collaborations and competitions between the growing fin-tech companies and the state-owned financial sector deserve further observations.
Encyclopedia of Big Data, 2018
This is a co-authored entry published on the Encyclopedia of Big Data (2017)
International Journal of Communication
Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporti... more Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporting "Internet finance," a business category initiated by the Chinese state in 2013 to vitalize the finance sector and offset economic slowdown. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses reveals that the major Chinese media outlets aggressively promoted the technological advantages of Internet finance and its profit potential in stock markets while obscuring the risks, uncertainties, and regulatory constraints inherent in it. Drawing on the institutional theory in media studies, this article argues that the mainstream financial news in China functions as a political, economic, and cultural-cognitive institution supporting the informatization and marketization of the finance sector. Such an institutional role is both a corollary and propeller of the increasingly financialized economy and culture in China.
This article studies the institutional role of Chinese financial news in the deepening process of... more This article studies the institutional role of Chinese financial news in the deepening process of financialization in China. It analyzes the 300 most viewed articles on Sina Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporting “Internet finance,” a business category initiated by the Chinese state in 2013 to vitalize the finance sector and offset the economic slowdown. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses shows that the major Chinese media outlets aggressively promoted the technological advantages of Internet finance and its profit potential in stock markets while obscuring the risks, uncertainties and regulatory constraints inherent in it. Drawing upon the institutional theory in media studies, this paper argues that the mainstream financial news in China functions as a political, economic, and cultural-cognitive institution supporting the informatization and marketization of the finance sector. Such an institutional role is both a corollary and propeller of the increasingly financialized economy and culture in China.
Keywords: institutional theory, financialization, financial news, Internet finance, China
China Business News, Commentary
Understanding Fintech from the big data perspective
Teaching Documents by Jing Wang
Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies, 2021
Digital financial technologies or so-called fin-techs have reshaped the financial practices world... more Digital financial technologies or so-called fin-techs have reshaped the financial practices worldwide. Around the year 2014 when fin-tech just came into shape and was primarily run by IT corporations or start-ups, it was normally considered “alternative finance”—the non-mainstream, or the supplement to the traditional finance managed by banks. While banks run as the dominant entities in traditional finance and get financial licenses from the government, the regulators often consider fin-tech companies as informational agencies rather than financial intermediaries. However, in less than five years, almost all the major banks have set up a department or business
sector to develop their fin-tech businesses. In the meantime,
some of the leading fin-tech companies, (e.g., Ant Financial) are considered the most valuable companies in the world (Reuters, 2018). How have digital technologies played a transforming role in the nancial domain? In addition to enhancing efficiency and innovation, what are the social and cultural consequences that are often ignored amid academic and public discussions? This chapter sets its foundation in these two questions and studies fin-techs through a critical lens. Rather than finding fault with the established scholarly thoughts, it takes critique as a way of alternative thinking, which has three specific prongs. First, it invites the researchers in economics and finance studies to shift their focus from theorization and modeling to the social contexts in which these theories and models are applicable, and thus enables the conversations between the classic literature and the interdisciplinary studies. Second, it invites financial practitioners to alter their focus. In addition to drilling on the returns of specic nancial products, they need to understand the social, political, and cultural settings of financial industries. This switch will help them to develop more sustainable financial products and services. Last but not least, the critical lens aims at showing the large public the pitfalls of corporate-dominated finance which has seldom been discussed in the popular business and financial news.
The China Quarterly, 2020
This article examines the roles that digital technologies have played in propelling the shifts of... more This article examines the roles that digital technologies have played in propelling the shifts of financial governance which have been led by the Chinese Communist Party and enacted by a wide spectrum of regulative actors. Based on analyses of the laws, policies and regulations surrounding digital financial technologies, or so-called fintechs, as well as in-depth interviews with government officials and fintech business executives, I argue that the proliferation of fintechs challenged the existing regulatory schemes defined by the Central Bank and the State Council. This forced a reconsideration of the Chinese government's hegemonic strategies in governing the rapidly changing financial industries. While digital technologies have been promoted to accomplish the goals set by the Party for financial marketization and modernization, a set of institutions including regulatory, organizational and normative rules have been developed to strengthen the Party's control over the digitization of finance. This contradiction is pivotal to understanding the Party's financial policymaking in the digital age.
The Political Economy of Communication, 2018
Data-driven technologies and platform economies have been widely employed by Chinese companies in... more Data-driven technologies and platform economies have been widely employed by Chinese companies in a variety of business sectors. In the past decade, these digital applications have profoundly restructured economic development and power relations in Chinese society. This article examines how the promotions of fintech media and communication technologies for transactions, loans, investments and many other financial practices–engender and enlarge Alibaba’s digital financial platform, Ant Financial, the largest digital financial company in China. From a political economy of communication perspective, we consider Ant Financial as a product of data-centric corporate convergence in which fintech media have extracted user data from Alibaba’s e-commerce and digital payment platforms and utilized this data to drive Alibaba’s growth in financial businesses. The consolidation of multiple platforms has transformed financial industries, challenged policy and regulatory regimes, and reshaped the cultures of finance in China. The convergence paradigm underpins the digital, technology-driven logic facilitated by the state in resource allocation and policy-making. The government’s supportive role is a vital condition for the rise of Chinese fintech giants such as Baidu Finance, Ant Financial, Tencent Finance, and Jingdong Finance.
Telecommunications Policy
China's financial industries started the process of marketization only two decades ago, but by 20... more China's financial industries started the process of marketization only two decades ago, but by 2017 its financial technology or fin-tech sector had taken half of the global market. The exponential diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Chinese financial contexts have generated new organizational structures and socio-political relations that have the capacity to change China's position in the world economy. Drawing upon the sociological concept of institutionalization, this paper examines how the Chinese state has integrated ICT diffusion in its formal policies and its informal rules in China's financial development since 1991. Further, it addresses the political and socio-economic consequences of these developments. Based on the analyses of government documents and sources, trade journals, and statistic data from business databases, this paper divides the Chinese institutionalization of financial technologies into three stages and identifies the primary actors and paradigms for ICT diffusions in each stage. ICT diffusion has been constitutive but also disruptive to the existing financial policies, instrumental to the commercialization of state-owned banks, and has gradually transformed into a set of formal and informal rules accepted by a network of professionals, corporations, and government agencies. The institutionalization of ICT diffusion has engendered the continuous adjustment of financial policies and propelled innovations in China's financial economy.
Communication and the Public
The financial sector in China is well known as a government-dominated hierarchy, and the access t... more The financial sector in China is well known as a government-dominated hierarchy, and the access to financial services has been controlled primarily by the state-run banks. Fin-tech businesses or so-called “Internet finance,” in China have included new actors such as Internet companies, small and medium enterprises, and small lay investors in the
financial regime. The new entrants’ technology-mediated interactions with the government engendered new politicoeconomic relations within and beyond the market, in the cyberspace and in everyday life. How have the Chinese modes of financial inclusion reconfigured the power relations between the state, corporations, and the investing public
in China? Through the political-economic analyses of three specific forms of fin-tech businesses—third-party payment, peer-to-peer lending, and money market fund this article argues that Chinese fin-techs have enabled a broader societal participation to investment practices and empowered Internet corporations alongside the state-controlled financial systems. Thus, such an inclusion is less about the “inclusive finance” endorsed by the World Bank for the underrepresented
social groups’ accesses to financial services. It is more of a technology-facilitated financialization initiated by the state, promoted by information technology companies, and popularized among small investors. Rather than leading to the decentralization of financial power, China’s fin-tech has formed a higher level of concentration of financial capital controlled by the Chinese oligopoly Internet corporations. Moreover, the collaborations and competitions between the growing fin-tech companies and the state-owned financial sector deserve further observations.
Encyclopedia of Big Data, 2018
This is a co-authored entry published on the Encyclopedia of Big Data (2017)
International Journal of Communication
Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporti... more Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporting "Internet finance," a business category initiated by the Chinese state in 2013 to vitalize the finance sector and offset economic slowdown. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses reveals that the major Chinese media outlets aggressively promoted the technological advantages of Internet finance and its profit potential in stock markets while obscuring the risks, uncertainties, and regulatory constraints inherent in it. Drawing on the institutional theory in media studies, this article argues that the mainstream financial news in China functions as a political, economic, and cultural-cognitive institution supporting the informatization and marketization of the finance sector. Such an institutional role is both a corollary and propeller of the increasingly financialized economy and culture in China.
This article studies the institutional role of Chinese financial news in the deepening process of... more This article studies the institutional role of Chinese financial news in the deepening process of financialization in China. It analyzes the 300 most viewed articles on Sina Finance to examine how the mainstream financial news choose topics, themes, and styles in reporting “Internet finance,” a business category initiated by the Chinese state in 2013 to vitalize the finance sector and offset the economic slowdown. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses shows that the major Chinese media outlets aggressively promoted the technological advantages of Internet finance and its profit potential in stock markets while obscuring the risks, uncertainties and regulatory constraints inherent in it. Drawing upon the institutional theory in media studies, this paper argues that the mainstream financial news in China functions as a political, economic, and cultural-cognitive institution supporting the informatization and marketization of the finance sector. Such an institutional role is both a corollary and propeller of the increasingly financialized economy and culture in China.
Keywords: institutional theory, financialization, financial news, Internet finance, China
China Business News, Commentary
Understanding Fintech from the big data perspective