ABSTRACT
The emergence of the financial industry has become a dominant feature in the capitalist economic system since the breakdown of the Breton Woods agreement in the 1970s. There are three penetrating and cross-enhancing processes characterizing the current global financial system: deregulation, technological innovation and globalization. Deregulation or liberalization of financial markets opens up new geographical markets and encourages the development of new financial products. As most of the transactions were based on cost consideration, the expertise for the futures dealers was to master the borrowed technique from other countries such as Korea, and to exploit the advantage of networking extending from other financial business. Under the circumstance, it was the extent of social networks, rather than the sophistication of trading skill that was critical in the business. In other words, the reluctant state policies led to a decentralized market structure which further shaped an under-developed professional community in Taiwan's futures trading industry.
