Pension capital is the single largest block of capital in the global domain of finance and a transformative social force. However, the studies on pension fund capitalism have been geographically limited. Although vast pools of pension capital have been generated outside the Anglo-American institutional environments, we still have little knowledge on the social construction of pension fund capitalism outside that context. The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical-methodological tools for studying the institutional differences in pension fund investments with habitual institutionalist theory at the level of organisation fields, and to apply these tools in an empirical case study that has theoretical relevance concerning the recent financialisation of European pension provision. The case study is focussed on the field of Finnish pension insurance companies that execute the nationally mandatory partly funded TyEL pension scheme. The case study includes a single case analysis at the organisation field level with embedded case analyses on the investment processes in two companies. The study is based on multiple sources of textual and interview data gathered and analysed with content analysis. It is argued that the institutional life of Finnish pension insurance company investments illustrates divergence from the Anglo-American pension fund capitalism and has reinforced elastic institutional solutions especially in domains of governance and regulation even under Europe-wide financialisation pressures. The Finnish case shows that there are alternative institutional solutions for various domains of pension fund capitalism, but the strong Europe-wide trends have all characterised recent institutional change in the TyEL field as well. It is concluded that although the European shift towards pension fund capitalism with the generation of increasingly independent portfolio investors with increasingly principle-based regulation and risk-based supervision has not necessarily implied strong institutional convergence, the European pension investors are likely to share a number of common questions in the future.

La « fin de la géographie » constitue un sujet de débats et d’oppositions entre les économistes et lesgéographes. Pourtant, les premiers participent à la reconnaissance du rôle de la géographie par la miseen évidence de l’influence toujours prégnante de la distance géographique sur les comportementsfinanciers. Ainsi, les économistes participent à la construction de cette discipline. Dans cetteperspective, l’objectif de cette thèse est l’intégration des OPCVM européens comme objets d’analysepertinents en géographie de la finance. Elle suppose de s’interroger sur le fonctionnement del’industrie, ses pratiques, sa réglementation. Le point focal mis sur le marché européen des OPCVMpermet de mettre au coeur de l’analyse le processus d’expansion spatiale inhérent à la finance. Si lesprincipes guidant cette expansion trouvent leurs origines dans l’industrie américaine, cette thèsesouligne le rôle actif joué par les États, l’Europe et les acteurs français. La circulation différenciée descapitaux au sein du marché européen révèle la logique multi-scalaire de la finance / The “end of geography” is a disputed and controversial topic among economists and geographers.Nevertheless economists contribute to the recognition of the role of geography by highlighting thepersistently important influence of geographic distance over financial behaviour. In this way they takepart in the construction of the discipline. Seen in this light, the aim of this study is the integration ofEuropean UCITS as a relevant research topic in geography of finance. The study claims to questionthe functioning of the industry, its practices and its regulation. The focus on European markets ofUCITS enables to place the process of geographic expansion in the centre of analysis. If the principlesguiding this expansion find their origins in the US, this study highlights the active role of States,Europe and French actors. Differentiated circulation of capital within European markets reveals themulti-scalar logic of finance.