Pricing the economic landscape: global financial markets and the communities and institutions of risk management

For much of the 20th century, economic geography was preoccupied with the spatial structure of market transactions and the resulting flows of commodities across time and space. This remains a vital reference point in any understanding of the global economy, providing important insights into the changing significance of cities and regions in national and international settings. An alternative way of looking at the dynamic economic landscape is via the scope and scale of financial decision-making focused on the locales and organization of risk management, which is the approach we pursue in this paper. We begin with observations about the fluctuating geographical scale of economic relationships, specifically noting the increasing significance of integration and the decreasing hold of local relationships on market transactions. This is followed by a brief overview of recent research on the geography of finance and emphasizes the importance of risk management within and between institutions over time and space. The regulation of risk is the theme of the latter sections of the paper, linking issues such as trust and accountability with community networks and organizational integrity. We conclude by drawing implications for both the changing role of urban centers and the place of communities within the emerging global financial system.