Dr. Bryane Michael is currently an advisor to the Ministry of Finance of a Pacific country and senior fellow at the University of Hong Kong. In his work at the World Bank, OECD, and Morgan Stanley, he advised on some of the newest technologies of the 2000s. He has done his graduate students in economics at Harvard and Oxford, and obtained his law degree from the King's College London.

Does financial law shape the competitiveness of an international financial centre? Or does technological change and growth attract the people and assets which turn towns in megalopoli? Hong Kong's bid to dominate the Chinese photovoltaic (solar panel) industry illustrates these issues all too clearly. My analysis traces the way laws on asset and debt securitization have left rival financial centres - like Chicago -- to sell interests in China's still relatively stable solar energy markets. The paper shows the size of the market opportunity and points to several factors that have hampered Hong Kong from developing a more tech-friendly financial law.