Ideas for Developing Asia and the Pacific

Call for Papers: Productivity, Corporate Governance, and Risk Management in the Digital Age

Third Workshop—Productivity, Corporate Governance, and Risk Management in the Digital Age
ADBI, PRN, NUS Business School, CAMRI, CGIO, and ABFER
Singapore
2-4 September 2018

Automation is sweeping across all fields of economic activity, and on a global scale. As automated technical solutions take over tasks previously performed by humans, the skill requirements for the remaining labor force increase. As a result, high-skill labor is scarce and trades at a premium, which exposes companies to unprecedented governance and risk management challenges. Is automation introduced too early or too late? Is the transformation and labor displacement rate excessive, possibly to the detriment of more traditional productivity-enhancing alternatives? How does the equilibrium distribution of wages and labor turnover feed back into the companies’ governance structures? What is the role of financial asset management and capital structure decisions in the era of disruptive technologies? Finally, can structural labor market reforms and active innovation policies support the transformation process and help consolidate productivity gains?

To explore questions in these emerging areas of academic and policy research, the Productivity Research Network (PRN) is organizing its third technical workshop on 3–4 September 2018 at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. The workshop—cosponsored by the Centre for Asset Management Research & Investments (CAMRI), the Centre for Governance, Institutions & Organisations (CGIO), the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), and the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER)—will bring regional researchers together to learn about applied work focusing on Asia and the Pacific, and generate research spillovers and potential collaborations. The workshop will provide an opportunity to discuss how the PRN can encourage data collection needed to develop solid research and policy analyses.

Kalina Manova, associate professor at the University College London, will deliver the keynote address.

The organization committee invites researchers to submit papers for the 3-4 September 2018 workshop. Empirical works using the cross-country (Asia, Pacific) PRN firm-level based dataset will be given priority. The papers can be either theoretical or empirically based on firm-level data, and address one or more of the following topics:

  • Cross-country comparable productivity measures and methodologies
  • Technological drivers of productivity growth
  • The link between productivity and employment at the firm level
  • Dispersion of labor costs across sectors
  • The role of technology in diffusing ideas and adopting productivity innovations
  • The effects of technological transformation on global value chains
  • Corporate governance, artificial intelligence, and privacy issues
  • Corporate governance and executive compensation in labor-intensive sectors
  • Decentralisation decisions of firms
  • Enabling technological transformation through financial risk management
  • Capital structure decisions for start-ups and high-growth firms

The extended abstracts or papers should be submitted electronically as PDF files to [email protected] (please indicate in the subject title “PRN Workshop 3-4 September 2018”) by 31 May 2018.

The organization committee includes:

  • Cristian Badarinza (NUS)
  • Lawrence Loh (NUS)
  • Filippo di Mauro (NUS)
  • Peter Morgan (ADBI)
  • Johan Sulaeman (NUS)

Submission Deadlines:

The workshop program will be circulated by 30 June 2018. Financing to attend the workshop will be limited, and participants are expected to shoulder their own travel and accommodation expenses. (ABFER will host a dinner for the participants on 3 September 2018. TBC.)

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