Contact
Biography
I am a financial geographer with research and teaching interests in central banking, financial risk management, green finance and climate change. I hold a PhD in Human Geography from the Department of Geography at Durham University. Before joining the School of Geography at Nottingham, I spent three years as Teaching Fellow in International Political Economy in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. I have previously taught Economic Geography as a Teaching Fellow at University College London and as a PhD student at Durham University. I am a Non-Resident Fellow at the Pulaski Institution and Commissioning Editor for Colonial Hangover Magazine.
In particular, my research investigates how risk is constituted through discursive and calculative practices by experts in public and private institutions and how such renderings of risk emanate outwards to shape and remake the geographies of the global financial system. My work has been published in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, Economic Geography, Geoforum, City, Journal of Urban Affairs and Journal of Cultural Economy. I have co-authored an essay on the geographical dynamics of inflation and a teaching resource on stress testing at the Bank of England.
My first book, Securing Finance, Mobilizing Risk: Money Cultures at the Bank of England (RIPE Series in Global Political Economy) demonstrates that financial risk management has a spatiality that helps to inform understandings and imaginaries of the risks associated with money and finance. The book forwarded the argument that the Bank of England has moved from a relatively broad-brush approach to the risks being managed in the financial sector, to a greater preoccupation with the understanding and mapping of the mobilization of financial risk. You can find me discussing some of the core arguments of the book in this Warwick Critical Finance Group Dialogue event and on the 'Morning Macro' podcast.
Expertise Summary
Recently, my research has focused on the expansion of the scope of what is considered to be a "financial stability threat". This strand of research sees me engage with urban and environmental geography. As such, I am currently devoting my research energies to the cultural and political economies of tail risk, climate finance and the governance of climate change by the financial regulatory community as a financial stability risk and concern. You can view some initial findings about the networked climate governance undertaken by credit rating agencies in a co-authored essay here.
My latest co-authored book, (Mis)managing macroprudential expectations: How central banks govern financial and climate tail risks explores the Bank of England's attempts to calculate tail risks to financial stability using a range of calculative devices. It argues that the development of such calculative techniques goes beyond identifying risk, because these calculative devices are employed by the Bank of England to negotiate its altered relationship with regulated banks since the global financial crisis. Such calculations are employed to signal limits on the central bank's willingness to provide support to struggling banks, and to steer banks' expectations around the use of new interventionist powers. The book's main arguments and structure are set out in the introductory chapter available here.
I have appeared as a panelist in a Global Insight Webinar organized by the Balsillie School of International Affairs on "Practical Measures Supporting Climate Change Mitigation and presented some of my research in the Finance & Regulation Theme of the Climate Exp0 conference hosted virtually by the COP26 Universities Network. I have been partnered with the Head of Lowland Peat Solutions at DEFRA through the University of Nottingham Policy Fellow Scheme. I am a collaborator on the Climate Finance for Equitable Transitions (CLiFT) project, which is a multi-institutional and multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at exploring the climate finance supply chain.
I have been interviewed by Risk.net about exploratory stress testing, shadow banking and credit rating agencies. My comments on the Bank of England's approach to transparency and public engagement have featured on BBC World Service and Bloomberg programmes.
Teaching Summary
My teaching has traditionally focused around introductory and advanced modules in Political Economy, Economic Geography and the Geographies of Money and Finance.
In the academic year 2023/24 I will be teaching on the following modules:
GEOG1008 Exploring Human Geography.
GEOG2016 Economic Geography.
GEOG3012 Geographies of Money and Finance.
GEOL3002 Global Climate Change.
GEOG4089 Project in Environmental Leadership and Management.
Recent Publications
CATHERINE PRICE, JOHN HOGAN MORRIS and CAROL MORRIS, 2024. Biochar carbon markets: A mitigation deterrence threat Environmental Science & Policy. 154, SAVANNAH COX, JOHN HOGAN MORRIS and ZAC TAYLOR, 2023. RISK-RATING AND NETWORKED AUTHORITY: A CLIMATE LEVIATHAN IN FORMATION? Available at: <https://lpeproject.org/blog/risk-rating-and-networked-authority-a-climate-leviathan-in-formation/> SARAH KNUTH, SAVANNAH COX, SAHAR ZAVAREH HOFMANN, JOHN HOGAN MORRIS, ZAC TAYLOR and BEKI MCELVAIN, 2023. Interrupted Rhythms and Uncertain Futures: Mortgage Finance and the (Spatio-) Temporalities of Climate Breakdown Journal of Urban Affairs. 18