XIX International Sociological Association, World Congress (Toronto 2018)

Money, Capital, and Modern Life: Building Conceptual Bridges Between Marx and Simmel

The year 2018 marks the 200^th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth and the 100^th anniversary of Georg Simmel’s death. This occasion presents a timely opportunity to reflect on the relation between their works.

The relevance of Marx’s writings to Simmel’s oeuvre is often alluded to, but the precise extent of this influence still calls for further exploration. The continuities are most striking at the level of the diagnosis of modern society: Marx’s analyses of alienation, commodity fetishism, and capital’s quantifying and accelerating tendencies are not only critically discussed but also expanded in Simmel’s investigations of the paradoxes of modern culture, to the point that the latter’s work could appear to a contemporary Continue reading →

The Review of Financial Studies seeks papers for a special issue on Climate Finance. Submission Deadline: July 30, 2017

Overview: Global warming and climate change present serious risks for corporate profits and capital markets. Many sectors, ranging from energy, food, insurance to real estate, are concerned about risks generated by a potential price on carbon, adverse shocks to agricultural productivity, or exposures to rising sea levels, to name a few. Capital markets, to the extent that they can assess and price these exposures, can potentially help households and institutions hedge climate change risks. Climate science has generated increasingly precise, accessible, and long historical panel data sets on a range of climate variables that allow for measurement and assessment of these risks on capital markets over the past century. Capital markets research that integrates these new data can spur the development of new methodologies and findings to help us address these important issues that affect the welfare of current and future generations, particularly those living in less-developed or emerging markets.

To promote research on issues that bear on the financial economics of climate change, Columbia University and the Review of Financial Studies, with the support of Norges Bank Investment Management, are issuing a call for proposals that will culminate in two research conferences. The conferences will be organized by Harrison Hong and José Scheinkman of Columbia University, and Andrew Karolyi of Cornell University and the Executive Editor of the Review of Financial Studies.

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The Warwick Critical Finance (WCF) Group is currently organising an early career researcher workshop titled “Taking the next step: new frontiers in the interdisciplinary study of finance” which will take place on 25-26 September 2017 at the University of Warwick.

We hope to create a constructive environment for early career scholars to present and discuss their research on finance. The deadline for abstract submissions is 1 June 2017. Please see the website for more information: www2.warwick.ac.uk/warwickcriticalfinance/workshop2017

WCF is a study group based at the University Warwick which takes a critical approach to new and emerging trends in global finance. We are interested in the ways that finance intersects and interacts with key dimensions such as development, class, gender, race or geography

The conference “Intersections of finance and society 2017” will be organized 2-3 November 2017 at City University London, UK. Organised in association with the Finance and Society Network at the University of Sydney and the City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC) at City University London.

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the various political responses it has triggered, and the emergence of new forms of fiscal and monetary policy, the need for a more sophisticated encounter between economic theory and the social sciences has become pressing. The growth of new forms of money and finance is increasingly recognised as one of the defining developments of our time, and it is beginning to yield innovative research across the humanities and social sciences.

Following on from the success of our inaugural conference last year, this two-day event aims to foster the further development of dialogue between the diverse camps that make up the new field of ‘finance and society’ studies. In particular, it seeks to identify new synergies between heterodox political economy and various sociological, historical, and philosophical perspectives on the intersections of finance and society. Continue reading →

Oikos and the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich will convene the 7^th oikos Young Scholars Finance Academy from September 4-6, 2017, in Zurich, Switzerland. The finance academy is a unique platform to support young researchers in finance and sustainability to advance their work and expand their international research and professional network. The deadline for applications is May 1, 2017.

Call for Applications
The oikos Young Scholar Finance Academy provides an intensive experience of learning and academic exchange on research topics around finance and sustainability. Participants will benefit from presenting and discussing their work with leading academics who will provide structured feedback and advice. The event will also include workshops by faculty members on the most recent developments of sustainable finance research, social activities as well as a roundtable with practitioners in the field.

Participants and Topics
The academy welcomes the submission of working papers addressing topics related to sustainability and finance. To allow for in-depth discussions, places are limited to 15 PhD and post-doctoral researchers from universities worldwide. The submission of studies adopting multidisciplinary approaches is strongly encouraged. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
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“Finance as a response to global environmental crises? Critical analysis of the ‘economicization’ of carbon emissions and biodiversity”

A conference hosted by the Centre for Globalisation and Governance, Universität Hamburg, Germany, 29 Nov-1 Dec 2017

Conveners: Eve Chiapello (EHESS Paris) and Anita Engels (Universität Hamburg)

In this conference we look at the ways finance is applied to convert capitalism from the source of global environmental crises into a provider of responses to these crises. Reaching a zero-carbon emission economy and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem integrity are presented by international organizations and national policymakers as decisive goals for the future of humankind. While it is clear that such goals cannot be achieved without radical transformations in the established forms of social organization associated with the operation of the global economy, modes of production and consumption, and more generally dominant ways of life and value systems, they are also said to require the ‘enrolment’ of major economic actors to realize massive new investments in ‘green’ technologies and ‘sustainable’ infrastructures. The industrial and financial sectors have historically been part of the framing and making of the present situation. Also, since the 1970s, those sectors have played a growing role in the definition, government and management of environmental problems. This may explain why there are so many initiatives, tools and instruments, programs and projects that rely on economic and/or financial instruments, such as carbon trading schemes, green bonds, the carbon divestment movement, compensation finance and ecosystem services finance, REDD+ contracts, and venture capital for sustainability.

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