The Asia School of Business, Bank Negara Malaysia, Council on Economic Policies, sustainable macro and INSPIRE invite you to this conference, taking place in person in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 19-20 October 2023. The conference addresses challenges posed by nature loss, including deforestation and land-use change, and the related environmental risks and impacts for the macroeconomy and finance. It aims to also discuss implications for monetary policy, financial supervision and climate policy. We welcome submissions from scholars, especially early career researchers and advanced PhD students, working on these topics.

Context                                                                                                        

The global economy faces new risks due to the degradation of nature and the unsustainable extraction of renewable and non-renewable resources. The micro- and macro-economic impacts of nature loss have received increasing attention in the last few years and the importance of addressing the degradation of different aspects of nature (soil, water, forest, biodiversity), their interactions with each other and interconnections with climate change is increasingly understood.  However, the financial implications are still largely unexplored.

The uncertain future development of nature degradation poses several questions for research in macroeconomics, finance, and environmental policy studies as a whole. To advance insights in the field, both for academia and practitioners, this conference aims to gather early researchers to present new studies, discuss the state of current knowledge and identify new areas for future research.

The degradation of nature, particularly through economic activities such as deforestation and land-use change will have significant macroeconomic implications, calling for further research along a range of research questions.

With this Call for Papers, we invite submissions of extended abstracts and draft papers that respond to the topics raised by these research questions. We welcome submissions on topics including, but not limited to:

Metrics and measurement

• Assessing nature-related economic and financial risks at global, regional, national and local level
• Understanding biophysical aspects and interactions, including for example deforestation and reforestation, soil degradation, invasive species, biodiversity and climate change

Research questions may include:

• How can the risks posed by nature degradation and the impacts of economic activities on nature loss be measured?
• What are the impacts of environmental hazard events and degradation on economic and financial losses? How can they inform future environmental policies and the development of economically resilient business and development strategies?
• What methodologies should be used or developed to study the impacts of nature-loss?
• What is the role of scenarios in analysing the impact of nature loss?
• Can compounding nature-climate risks be estimated?

Micro- and macroeconomic implications of the net-zero transition and nature degradation

• Integration of environmental services and degradation into macroeconomics and financial models
• Understanding socio-technical transition pathways and/or public support for climate or nature policies in emerging economies
• Assessing energy transition policies in emerging economies
• Mitigation and adaptation measures, to reduce risk exposures for the economy

Research questions may include:

• What policies can be adopted to mitigate climate- and nature-related risks, including the areas of energy transition, renewable energy and others?
• What are important aspects of the relationship between nature and economic activities that would be important to integrate in the debate (e.g. migration of economic activities, supply chain linkages, cascading effects)? How can we address them?
• How can economic, financial and environmental policymakers address the potential negative relationship between achieving positive net zero transition outcomes and negative nature outcomes (e.g. detrimental environmental impact from mining for minerals necessary for the net zero transition)?
• What is the relationship between nature loss and sovereign debt?

The role of financial regulators and central banks

• Impact of nature loss on economic and financial stability, and on financial and fiscal risk for governments and sovereigns
• Impact of nature loss on monetary policy effectiveness and monetary governance
• The analysis and calibration of prudential instruments reflecting nature and climate risks

Research questions may include:

• How should financial regulators and central banks consider nature and environmental risks in prudential policies?
• How should central banks consider nature and environmental losses in their monetary policy activities?
• How do environmental risks and impacts influence the effective conduct of monetary policy?
• How should central banks consider climate-nature trade-offs?
• What are first steps for central banks and supervisors to address nature-related risks? How can the resilience of the financial system be improved against nature-related financial risks, systemic exposure, and losses?
• Given the overlap between nature and climate, to what extent is nature loss already incorporated into central banks and financial regulators’ climate policy frameworks? What specific nature-risks are potentially excluded?

Corporate finance and investment implications

• Opportunities of nature-positive and net zero strategies for corporates and investors
• No regret strategies and policies
• The role of alternative financing systems and solutions

Research questions may include:

• How is nature loss reflected into companies’ short-, medium and long-term activities and strategies?
• How should financial institutions reflect nature loss as a financial risk in their investment strategies?

Information and contact

The submission deadline for papers is 15 July. Accepted papers will be notified by the end of August.

Scientific committee

The scientific committee will consist of leading academics, central bank representatives, and researchers with practice experience. Confirmed scientific committee members are: Aziz Durrani (ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office), Ben Filewod (London School of Economics), Charlotte Gardes-Landolfini (IMF), Darian McBain (London School of Economics), Elsa Allman (Banque de France), Felicia Liu (University of York), Ho-Sue Jade (Bank Negara Malaysia), Markus Leippold (University of Zurich), Nicola Ranger (University of Oxford), Ole Jens Rummel (SEACEN), Skand Goel (S&P Global), and Ulrich Volz (SOAS).

Organising committee

Elena Almeida, Julia Bingler, Chiara Colesanti Senni, Simon Dikau, Adrian von Jagow, Natasha Jalil, Ozer Karagedikli, Alain Naef, Nur Syairah Husna Mohd Ridzuan, Fathin Rusliza, Nathalie Marins, Nicole Toftum, Zhai Gen Tan, Thessa Vasudhevan

You can contact the organising committee at contact@sustainablemacro.org

Important dates: 

Submissions

Please click on the link below to access the submission form. You will need to sign into a Google account to submit and upload a draft paper. If you cannot do this for any reason, please submit your application to contact@sustainablemacro.org with the information specified in this document.

Submission Form