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Visiting scholar position at Heidelberg University for Dr Adam Dixon

29 August 2012

Dr. Adam Dixon has been offered a visiting scholar position at Heidelberg University's Institute of Geography for the spring term 2013. On the invitation of the Economic and Social Geography research group led by Prof. Dr. Johannes Glückler, Dr. Dixon will explore issues relating to new types of financial knowledge following the financial crisis, particularly for institutional investors operating outside of the principle financial centres of New York and London. 

This specific project will build on Dr. Dixon's larger research project, supported by a University Research Fellowship, examining and conceptualising the locational and organisational dynamics of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) development outside of traditional financial centres in cities and states without any past claims to the global finance industry. Its main contention is that SWFs and other large public institutional investors are finding novel ways of overcoming the asymmetric information, access and monitoring problems associated with investing at a distance through collaboration and co-investment with similar funds elsewhere. However, it is not clear whether and how these funds are attracting and retaining the required human capital to reduce their reliance on external asset managers and complementary services in the major financial centres. In effect, while the dramatic rise of SWFs outside the major financial centres suggests the potential of a ‘window of locational opportunity’ for partially remaking the map of global finance and investment management, a number of challenges remain.

Dr Adam Dixon