Dear Colleagues: There has been a change in this year's Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography. Michael Storper will serve as a discussant in place of Andrew Leyshon, who is unable to travel due to a recent bike accident. We wish Andrew a very swift recovery.
Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography Speaker: Gordon L. Clark - University of Oxford Title: Financial literacy in context Abstract: Financial literacy has caught the attention of policymakers around the world. A major research programme has been initiated by the World Bank aimed at mapping patterns of financial literacy in developed and developing economies. In this paper, 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 undercutting the possibility universality of shared interpretations of notionally common problems. Nonetheless, the literacy mapping project is important for what it reveals about the geographical and socio-demographic patterns of financial knowledge. Further, our research on financial decision-making has been based in part upon a concern for the nature and scope of financial knowledge and understanding in the context of risk and uncertainty. As such, the trick is to anchor financial literacy programmes in ways relevant to everyday life. These arguments are illustrated with reference to the relevant literature, published and unpublished research on financial literacy amongst German residents, and an innovative financial literacy programme that is fine-tuned to people's circumstances. Discussant: Michael Storper - London School of Economics Thursday 4/11/2013, 2:40-4:20pm, Sacramento, Westin, Level 2 The lecture is sponsored by AAG Economic Geography Specialty Group, University of Illinois, and Economic Geography ******************************** Yuko Aoyama, Ph.D. Professor and Henry J. Leir Faculty Fellow Graduate School of Geography CLARK UNIVERSITY Editor, Economic Geography
