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This article provides a model of the ways in which knowledge is defined and conceptualised in economic geography including reference to codified and tacit knowledge and how these concepts apply or do not apply to financial markets. This leads to a reinterpretation of learning-by-doing, and a call for a renewed focus on human behaviour especially as regards to the ways in which knowledge and understanding of financial markets intersect with management strategy and organisational design. Implications are drawn for economic geography about what appear to be two different and non-intersecting research programmes in the discipline—the knowledge economy and finance.

If the social relations and inherited configuration of production were at the core of economic geography a decade ago, these aspects of the world are increasingly taken for granted. The global scope of industry and corporate strategy has claimed increasing attention over the past decade. And while any 'new' economic geography must have something to say about the nature of human agency and the role of institutions in structuring the landscape, care must be taken not to exaggerate their significance for constructive interaction. In point of fact, the global finance industry is an essential lens through which to study contemporary capitalism from the top-down and the bottom-up. If we are to understand the economic landscape of twenty-first century capitalism, it should be understood through global financial institutions, its social formations and investment practices. This argument is developed by reference to the recent literature on the geography of finance and a metaphor - money flows like mercury - designed to explicate the spatial and temporal logic of global capital flows. Some may dispute this argument, but in doing so they lament the passing of an era rather than advancing a convincing counterclaim about how the world is and what it might become. All this means that we have to rethink the significance of geographical scale and organizational processes as opposed to an unquestioned commitment to localities.

We investigate how the emergence of fintech start-ups and their financing is shaped by regional knowledge creation and lack of trust in financial services incumbents across 21 OECD countries, 226 regions and over the 2007–2014 period. We find that knowledge generated in the IT sector is much more salient for fostering new fintech start-ups than knowledge generated in the financial services sector. Additionally, the importance of new knowledge created in the financial services sector (IT sector) increases (decreases) as fintech start-ups grow and seek financing. When the level of trust in financial services incumbents falls within a region, this is followed by an increase in the financing provided to fintech start-ups. Nevertheless, regions with historically low average levels of trust in financial services incumbents attract less fintech investment overall.

Financial literacy has caught the attention of policy makers around the world. A major research program has been initiated by the World Bank aimed at mapping patterns of financial literacy in developed and developing economies. In this article, I explain the conceptual foundations of the literacy project, develop a critique of its testing procedures, and suggest that, at the limit, it is an impossible project. At every turn, standard tests of financial literacy dissolve into spatially and temporally specific phenomena that undercut the possibility of shared interpretations of notionally common problems. Nonetheless, the literacy mapping project is important for what it reveals about the geographic and sociodemographic patterns of financial knowledge. My research on financial decision making has been based, in part, on a concern for the nature and scope of financial knowledge and understanding in the context of risk and uncertainty. Thus, the trick is to anchor financial literacy programs in ways that are relevant to everyday life. These arguments are illustrated with reference to the relevant literature, published and unpublished research on financial literacy among German residents, and an innovative financial literacy program that is fine-tuned to people's circumstances.

We examine whether an individual's inability to save in the last 12 months affects the extent to which they are concerned about their future financial security and their propensity to plan for retirement. We use an original survey based upon representative samples of working individuals in 16 countries. We show that individuals who were unable to save over the 12-month period prior to the survey are less likely to consider well-being in retirement as their major financial concern. They are also less likely to invest in supplementary pension funds than those who were able to accumulate savings. We provide evidence that these findings are robust under several specifications and are mediated by respondents' perceived income prospects and assessment of their current financial situations.

This book tackles crucial issues regarding the emerging global market for corporate governance. The authors describe and explain the transformation of European corporate governance in the light of the imperatives driving global financial markets, using an innovative analytical framework. They chart the response of corporate managers to the interest of global portfolio managers in transparent and accountable modes of corporate governance. In doing so, the authors provide an innovative perspective on a rapidly changing environment, and a challenge to those who ignore the gathering momentum of global financial markets.

Who could have thought that banks would become nationalised, that state debts would reach historical levels, that bulge bracket investment banks would go bankrupt and that the masters of the universe would be so widely vilified? Each in their own way, the four reflections collected in this article address the new issues raised by the financial meltdown for the past and future of financial geography. They also reflect back on the issues raised in the introduction to the special issue and the way the papers making up the special issue provide ammunition for future research. The comments offer a remarkably coherent message that reflects that conveyed in the introduction about the potential, and especially the need to realise the potential, of financial geography at the current time.

In their different ways, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the US Fed combine expertise with representation: key members of these institutions along with their staff are appointed on the basis of their expertise and professional qualifications whereas each organization is conceived, in part, so as to represent the constituent nation-states or regions that make up their currency zones. In this article, the tension between expertise and representation apparent in the constitution of each institution is explored with emphasis on the ways in which geography is represented in monetary policy decision-making. The formal representation of nation-states in the ECB, their voting rights, and the significance or otherwise of large Eurozone countries is also considered. Being an analytical assessment of the effectiveness of the ECB compared with the Fed, the effectiveness of each institution is assessed in the light of financial risk and uncertainty and the complex interplay between monetary policy-making and fiscal federalism. Implications are drawn as regards the management of the Euro crisis has been managed, and the ways in which the welfare of peripheral countries have been discounted.

The transition from defined-benefit to defined-contribution occupational-pension plans has placed a premium on the participants' or contributors' decision-making competence. Their attitudes to risk and their responses to available investment options can have far-reaching implications for their retirement income. Behavioural research on risk and uncertainty has raised understanding of the limits of individual decision-making, but the social status and demographic characteristics of plan participants may also affect risk perception and pension choices. By studying a random sample of the British adult population, this paper explores the significance of socio-demographic characteristics for pension-related risk attitudes. It is demonstrated that pension-plan participants do not appear to understand the risks associated with different types of retirement savings and pension plans. The paper also shows that the gender, age and income of plan participants can give rise to distinctive risk propensities, and that marital status and, in particular, whether a spouse also has a pension can also have significant consequences for household risk preferences. These results have implications for those segments of the population that are disadvantaged in the labour market. Employer-provided pensions' education and information programmes may have to be more basic and more closely tailored to the social status of pension plan participants than hitherto assumed or hoped.