Progress in Financial Geography in Western Countries and Its Implications for Chinese Geographers
西方金融地理学研究进展及其启示

Encouraged by David Harvey's search, Western economic geographers took money and finance seriously for the first time in the 1970s. They focused on the role played by financial institutions in channeling capital to and from particular places. In the 1980s, Western geographers turned their attention to understanding the impacts of finance, spatial organization and operation of financial institutions, development of financial centers, and the relationship between financial flows and the industry's development. Since the 1990s, based on the "cultural and institutional turn" in economic geography, studies in financial geography have been reshaped by three increasing challenges; which are deregulation, technological innovation and economic globalization. At present, there are three major research themes in the field, i.e., the study of financial centers, financial exclusion and its impacts on society, and the study of money and space. Compared to the progress in financial geography made by Western geographers, as discussed in this paper, studies in the field of financial geography in China are just starting up. E-conomic geographers in China are suggested to focus their current research in the field on analysis of financial service network, spatial differences of money flow, and financial exclusion.