Gordon L. Clark


Gordon Leslie Clark, FBA FAcSS is an Australian economic geographer, academic, and consultant. He is former Executive Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford with cross appointments in the Saïd Business School and the School of Geography and the Environment. Clark's latest work focuses on the geographical structure and performance of financial markets and organisations. He wrote and co-wrote multiple books in these subjects, including The Geography of Finance, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and Institutional Investors in Global Markets.

Biography

Early life and education

Clark has a BEcon and MA in Geography from Monash University, a DSc and an MA in Economic Geography from Oxford, and a PhD in Economic Geography from McMaster University.

Academia

Clark's first academic post was in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He then held an appointments at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz School and Monash University.
Having been the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography and Head of the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford, he was appointed Executive Director of the Smith School in 2012. He has been an advisor to companies on issues such as long-term environmental performance. With Zurich Insurance, he led a team of Oxford academics on a 6 year-long consultation on individual behavior and risk and uncertainty in household decision-making. Clark holds a Professorial Fellowship at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, was the Sir Louis Matheson Distinguished Visiting Professor at Monash University's Faculty of Business and Economics and was a visiting professor at Stanford University.
Clark sits on the advisory board of Avida International, and has been an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the National Research Council. At the Harvard Kennedy School he led faculty and student-based consulting projects with governmental organisations, and at Oxford, he has advised major corporations on their global environmental performance.
In 2020, IP Group appointed Clark as the Chair of its Ethics Committee, which was established to oversee the company's Ethical Investment Framework. He is also a member of its ESG Committee.

Research and contributions

Initially, his research was on regional economics, patterns of employment and unemployment, and the market forces driving geographical and economic differentiation. He is the co-author of Regional Dynamics: Studies in Adjustment Theory and the author of Unions and Communities Under Siege. He has also published research on political theory as represented by State Apparatus with Michael Dear and the role of judicial decision making in the development of American cities. He is the author of Judges and the Cities.
At Oxford, he has promoted research in economic geography and finance and is a co-editor of the leading handbook in the field: The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography. He is also the author of many books and papers on savings behaviour and financial institutions including Pension Fund Capitalism, European Pensions and Global Finance, and Saving for Retirement. He is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income. In recent years, his research has focused on the geographical structure and performance of financial markets and organisations found in books such as The Geography of Finance, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and Institutional Investors in Global Markets.

Selected published books

  • Clark, G. L., & Monk, A.. Institutional Investors in Global Markets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., Dixon, A., & Monk, A.. Sovereign Wealth Funds: Legitimacy, Governance and Global Power. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., Strauss, K., & Knox-Hayes, J.. Saving for Retirement: Intention, Context, and Behaviour. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., & Wójcik, D.. The Geography of Finance: Corporate Governance in the Global Marketplace. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., & Tracey, P.. Global Competitiveness and Innovation. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN, ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L.. European Pensions & Global Finance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN, ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L.. Pension Fund Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN, ISBN. Chinese translation: Beijing: China Financial Publishing House, 2008. ISBN.

Selected edited books

  • Clark, G. L., Feldman, M., Gertler, M. S., & Wójcik, D.. The New Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Clark, G. L., Dixon, A., & Monk, A.. Managing Financial Risk: From the Global to the Local. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., Munnell, A., & Orszag, M.. The Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., & Whiteside, N.. Pension Security in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN, ISBN.
  • Clark, G. L., Gertler, M. S., & Feldman, M.. The Oxford Handbook of Economic Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN. Chinese translation: Beijing: Commercial Press, 2005.

Selected recent published papers

  • Clark, G. L., & O’Neill, P.. An economic and financial geography of the Australian superannuation industry. Geographical Research, 61, 443-457.
  • Clark, G. L., Innocenti, S., & McGill, S.. Experience of financial challenges, retirement concerns, and planning: evidence from representative samples of workers in 16 countries. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 61, 443-457.
  • Clark, G. L.. Tacit knowledge, hoarding, and rent-seeking behaviour in the global asset management industry. Finance & Space, 1, 58-75.
  • Clark, G. L., & Dixon, A.. Legitimacy of global finance and the extraordinary growth in ESG measures and metrics. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 56, 645-61.
  • Clark, G. L.. Agency, technological change, and concern about future employment prospects. ZFW—Advances in Economic Geography, 66, 3-17.
  • Clark, G. L.. The problematic nature of UK pension fund regulation: performing governance at the expense of pension adequacy. Competition & Change, 26, 125-142.
  • Clark, G. L., Cojoianu, T., Ascui, F., Hoepner, A., & Wójcik, D.. Does the fossil fuel divestment movement impact new oil and gas fundraising? Journal of Economic Geography, 21, 141-164.
  • Clark, G. L.. The significance of financial competence and risk tolerance in home-related expenditure by jurisdiction and regime. Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie, 65, 12-27.

Honours

In 2005, Clark was elected Fellow of the British Academy, and in 2014 received an honorary doctorate from the Panteion University of Athens. He also received the Distinguished Alumni Award by McMaster University, and the Chancellor’s Medal of the University of California–Santa Barbara.