Managing Financial Risks From Global to Local

Recent market turmoil, bank runs, global equities sell-off, and the "credit crunch" have demonstrated the sophisticated and interconnected nature of financial markets today-- seemingly localized problems have quickly spread, putting at risk the solvency of both local and global financial institutions. As these markets are increasingly complex, interconnected, and embedded in the daily lives of individuals, there is a pressing need to unravel and understand the complexities and prospects of this new and transformative social, political, and geographical paradigm. This book brings together a group of leading scholars from a range of disciplines to formulate a more holistic understanding of financial risk by rooting it in different environments, spatial scales, and disciplines. The result is an all-encompassing exposition of current and future financial risk management practices, possibilities, and problems.

Gordon L. Clark is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, holds a Professorial Fellowship at St Peter's College, and is currently a Senior Research Associate of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. His current research is on pension fund governance focusing upon the competence and consistency of decision-makers and the design of rules and regulations to enhance the investment performance of these crucial institutions (supported by the National Association of Pension Funds and Watson Wyatt). Related work centres on individual financial decision-making in defined contribution plans emphasizing the intersection between cognition and context (supported, in part, by the ESRC, Mercers, and Watson Wyatt). Recent books include The Geography of Finance (OUP, 2007) (with Dariusz Wojcik), Pension Fund Capitalism (OUP, 2000), and the co-edited Pension Security in the 21st Century (OUP, 2003) and The Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income (OUP, 2006). Adam D. Dixon is a PhD candidate in economic geography at the OUCE, University of Oxford. His doctoral research focuses on developing conceptualizations of European and global financial geography in the context of globalization and institutional diversity. He holds a graduate degree from the Institute d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and undergraduate degree from The George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. He has published in New Political Economy, Soziale Welt, and has a forthcoming article in the Journal of Economic Geography. He is also the International Economy Editor for Oxford Analytica. Ashby H. B. Monk is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research. He received his PhD in Economic Geography at Oxford and holds an MA in International Economics from the Universite de Paris I - Pantheon Sorbonne and a BA in Economics from Princeton University. His current research is on the design and governance of financial institutions, with particular focus on pensions and sovereign wealth funds (supported by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Lupina Foundation). He has published numerous academic papers related to the above, and is the co-author of a forthcoming book entitled Sovereign Wealth Funds: Power, Governance, and Legitimacy (Princeton University Press).

PrefaceIntroductionSection I: Governing Global Financial Risk1. The Changing Political Geography of Financial Crisis Management, Louis W. Pauly2. Is Financial Governance Feasible in the Neoliberal Era, Gary Dymski3. Institutional Investors and Risk Management, Gordon L. ClarkSection II: Place, Proximity, and Risk4. The Practicalities of Being Inaccurate: Steps Towards the Social Geography of Financial Risk Management, Yuval Millo and Donald Mackenzie5. Learning to Cope with Uncertainty: On the Spatial Distributions of Financial Innovation and its Fall-out, Ewald Engelen6. The Role of Proximity in Secondary Markets, Dariusz WójcikSection III: Urban Risk7. Infrastructure Investment and the Management of Risk, Phillip O'Neill8. Balancing Risk and Return in Urban Investing, Lisa A. Hagerman and Tessa Hebb9. Managing Financial Risks in Urban Environments, Sam RandallsSection IV: Individuals in a Risk World10. Managing Financial Risk: The Strange Case of Housing, Sue Smith11. Gender, Risk, and Occupational Pensions, Kendra Strauss12. Consumer Credit, Self-Discipline, and Risk Management, Paul Langley