Ideas for Developing Asia and the Pacific

Call for Papers on Strengthening Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Under the COVID-19 Crisis

Strengthening Environmental, Social, and Governance Investment Under the COVID-19 Crisis
Asian Development Bank Institute
Tokyo, Japan

Increasing numbers of investors have been integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in their investment decisions, with important implications for corporate values and sustainable and inclusive growth. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and investors’ preference for safe assets are creating new challenges for ESG investment and its growth outlook.

ADBI welcomes original, unpublished papers on strengthening ESG investment under the COVID-19 crisis and its implications for economies in Asia and the Pacific, to be presented during a related ADBI conference. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • The potential for companies to invest more in ESG-related activities while facing revenue slumps
  • Actions governments and stock exchanges can take to promote ESG investment for economic revitalization
  • Ways to improve firm disclosure and the standardization of ESG evaluations
  • The pros and cons of ESG investment as a mechanism for achieving a green society compared to other measures such as carbon taxes and regulations
  • Whether ESG performance can enjoy relatively stable cost of capital and funding amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as it did during the global financial crisis
  • Whether ESG investment outperforms the average portfolio as well as its performance under the COVID-19 crisis

Submission Procedure

Authors should submit their full papers together with brief bios via this link by 5 January 2021. Please indicate if you would also like your paper to be considered for inclusion in a planned ADBI book volume.

Authors of selected papers will be notified by 22 January 2021.

Arrangements for Selected Papers

Authors of selected papers will be invited to present them during an ADBI virtual conference to spotlight ESG investment growth issues on 8-10 February 2021.

Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication as ADBI working papers, as well as in the edited book volume or a special journal issue.

Project Organizing Committee

  • Naoko Nemoto, Asian Development Bank Institute/Waseda Business School
  • Peter Morgan, Asian Development Bank Institute
  • Lian Liu, Asian Development Bank Institute

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