Since 2015 the European Union has positioned itself as global leader in the ecological transition, placing the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 at the heart of its economic and financial agenda. This article examines the role of public banks, particularly the European Investment Bank (EIB), in structuring the financing of the green transition.

Cette thèse analyse l'évolution de la finance solidaire en France à travers l'essor des fonds d'investissement solidaires. Elle met en lumière les tensions entre logique financière et l'objectif solidaire initial, en s'appuyant sur trois cas. 

We exploit new data on NGO campaigns that target banks financing fossil fuels ("brown'' banks) to build a measure of French banks' environmental reputation, which we merge with granular data on bank deposits and loans of households in France over 2010-2020. We find that banks receive relatively fewer household deposits when they are perceived...

This article  analyses the role that central banks could play in dealing with stranded "brown"assets as a result of the ecological transition.The estimates provided thtough a database that we are building for the analyses suggest that central banks, as "liquidators of last resort" of stranded asset markets, would inject volumes of liquidity comparable to...

La question de la dette publique française est au cœur des débats depuis de nombreuses années et donne lieu à des affirmations alarmistes dont la plus connue est celle de François Fillon en 2007. Il est utile de poser les termes de ce débat, en précisant ce que recouvre la dette publique, les causes de...

Si les États-Unis sont apparus comme la puissance mondiale dominante depuis la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, c’est non seulement en raison de leur puissance...  

This article examines the financial performance of French solidarity-based investment funds, also known as "90-10 funds", which combine 90% responsible listed assets and 10% solidarity assets from Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) enterprises. 

Une étude menée sur 305 entreprises cotées en France, en Allemagne, au Royaume-Uni et au Japon, met en lumière l’influence du conseil d’administration sur la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES). Une empreinte surtout prégnante dans les entreprises les plus émettrices.

 In this paper, we analyze the role of firms in mitigating climate change through their model of corporate governance. Our findings vary depending on the high- or low-emission sector. Based on these results, we propose several managerial and policy implications that can help improve corporate climate performance.

Cet article propose une analyse comparative d’un fonds solidaire « 90-10 » recherchant principalement la performance financière (fonds « A ») et d’un fonds solidaire spécialisé (fonds « B »), privilégiant la création d’impacts positifs sans performance financière. Ces fonds combinent les notions d’impact et de solidarité de manière hybride : communication d’une part, pratiques de financement et de sélection d’autre...

La transparence : une condition nécessaire à la réorientation des investissements vers une économie bas carbone, mais pas suffisante. Quels sont les déterminants qui influencent la transparence climatique des firmes européennes ?

A new approach to the teaching of ethics to prevent conflicts of interest and capture. 

This paper studies climate-related central bank communication using a novel dataset containing 35,487 speeches delivered by 131 central banks from 1986 to 2023. It employs natural language processing techniques to identify and trace the evolution of key climate-related narratives centred around (i) green finance, and (ii) climate-related financial risks. Equity returns of "green" firms outperform those of "dirty" firms...

The report attempts to respond to the UN Secretary-General's recent call for "innovative approaches and bold policy decisions" to tackle the SDGs (UN, 2023). It attributes the existing finance gap to the unrealistic assumptions of the dominant macroeconomic paradigm, which it proposes to replace with new assumptions that are better able to address the...

Si elle ne veut pas se désintégrer sous la pression de multiples crises internes et externes, l’Europe politique doit adapter sa gouvernance économique aux défis qui l’attendent. Certaines formes de coordination économique peuvent émerger dans le cadre juridique actuel, d’autres exigeraient une réforme des traités européens.

This article looks at how to make fiscal, monetary and prudential policies greener in order to address the massive financing needs and major risks associated with climate change.

Starting with the observation, based on the recent experience of the financial and health crises, that the separate and independent implementation of monetary and fiscal policies undermines...

This paper explores the potential contribution of Sustainability-linked Money Creation (SMC) to sustainable economic policies. Our simulations suggest that, in comparison to a baseline scenario, SMC issues could potentially constitute an anti-inflationary, counter-cyclical green transition policy, that increases biomimetic resilience and contains income and wealth inequalities. We finally discuss the policy implications, as well...

This paper explores the contribution of ecosystemic macroprudential regulations to the sustainable development goals in an ecological PK-SFC framework. The results highlight the importance of a paradigm shift in prudential regulation in the fight against climate change.

We analyze the effects of power constraints on manufacturing firms’ TFPR. Statistically, the power constraints treatment variable is not random for the firms. Power constraints negatively and significantly affect firm-level TFPR. Average productivity 11% lower for exposed firms compared to unexposed firms. The acquisition of backup generators or investment in R&D mitigates this...

This paper investigates the impact of electrification on household practices related to deforestation in Côte d’Ivoire, specifically focusing on the expansion of arable farms and the use of biomass fuels.  

Looking at the relationship between electrification and the expansion of arable farms inspired by Angelsen and studying  data from the latest four waves of the household Living Standards...

We analyse the current and possible ways forward in this consideration of climate and biodiversity by finance, highlighting the extent to which they may either contribute to and/or suffer from those environmental changes.

Since the early 2000s, the public debate has gradually filled with normative proposals aimed at tackling the two-way climate finance challenge (how finance impacts climate stability and how finance can be impacted by climate change) – the “climate finance agenda”. Yet, although parts of this agenda are already discussed by the literature, scholars still...

The failure of market mechanisms to respect the carbon budget, to assess climate-based financial risks, and to reallocate financial flows on a more sustainable greenhouse gas emission pathway call for strong public interventions and for a strong involvement of both central banks and regulators in the structural change of finance.

This article analyses the integration of climate issues into corporate governance. Based on data from the 2019 CDP survey, it shows that FTSE100, HDAX, and SBF120 companies use similar control and incentive mechanisms to ensure the transparency of climate information, despite some specificities related to their legal and institutional environments. The paper identifies some shortcomings and makes recommendations to...

This PhD thesis focuses on a recent and rapidly spreading, but highly diverse phenomenon: the integration of climate and environemntal issues by central bankers. To do so, the author draws from different approaches in order to understand what drives (some) central banks to embrace this issue, why they do so and...

Climate transparency through firms' disclosures is often considered a prerequisite for the redirection of investments toward low-carbon economy. In order to provide effective incentives to improve this transparency, it is therefore crucial to identify its drivers.

Our analysis of the Climate Risks and Opportunities Index (CRORI) and the CDP climate score reveal a parallel improvement of these indices with different sectoral disparities over the 2015–2019 period. While our results are encouraging, they need to be put into perspective because these firms are still far from being carbon neutral.

Le vendredi 23 juin 2023, la Chaire Énergie et Prospérité organisait un séminaire consacré au thème de l’(in)efficience, des marchés financiers face à la transition écologique, dans ses dimensions informationnelle et allocationnelle.

We examine in this paper sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) whose issuance now totals more than USD 200 bn. There is a structural design flaw in the SLB mechanism: setting a significant coupon step-up does not suit the issuer’s nor the investors’ interests, considering conditionality. This creates a no win situation for the issuer and investors alike and explains the “benign”...

We address the long-standing challenge of adding optimal exploration to the classic Hotelling model of a non-renewable resource. We prove that a frontier of critical levels of proven reserves exists, above which exploration ceases, and below which it proceeds at infinite speed.

In its 2021 strategy review, the European Central Bank's Governing Council unanimously decided to make climate change one of its priorities for the coming years. In this article, we try to understand how this change was achieved.

Corporate disclosures related to climate risks are one of the ways to fight climate change by improving financial transparency for investors. An initial assessment, five years after the COP 21, of the climate disclosure practices of French companies (CAC 40) 2015-2019 will be presented. While the results are encouraging, they need to be put into...

In this paper, we examine how central banks and financial supervisors are approaching the topic of BRFR in relation to climate-related financial risk. We argue that policymakers should focus upon the broader concept of systemic environmental-financial risks to account for the interactions and trade-offs between both domains of biodiversity and climate change.

Central bank independence (CBI) has often been presented as a superior institutional arrangement demonstrated by economists in the 1980s for achieving a common good in a non-partisan manner. In this article, we argue that this view must be challenged.   The growing gap between theory and practices makes plausible a further shift...

Based on the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios, this article studies the credit risk sensitivity of 795 international companies to carbon prices.

Using the IPCC (2018) medium (2024) and long-term (2060) scenarios, this study analyzes the credit risk sensitivity of 763 international companies.

In this article, we build on four methods to show that Art. 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement comprises a new meaning of ‘finance’ under the United Nations negotiations. Implementation of Art. 2.1(c) requires engagement by governments and non-state actors, including the financial sector. 

In this article, we seek to decipher the forces at work in the deconstruction of the myth of a central bank solely dedicated to preserving the value of money and disconnected from major societal issues and debates. We develop the idea that since the financial crisis, central banks have been re-engaging their politics in...

This article demonstrates that the green bond cannot constitute an incentive to carry out a green project.

We propose an exploratory and theoretical study which introduces how and why a particular and innovative ecological accounting approach, the CARE model, currently called upon by a growing number of practitioners and researchers, is a relevant framework to re-conceptualise the issue of climate finance

Using textual analysis methods, we study how the topic of climate change has appeared and evolved in the speeches of the ECB's Executive Board members since 1997.

This article studies how institutional dynamics might affect and be affected by the implementation of climate-related financial policies.

This article point out why current banking regulation is not adequate to face risks whose origin is grounded outside financial markets and offer avenues for reforming macroprudential regulation.

L'objectif de cet article est de faire un état des lieux des travaux sur la finance durable à travers une analyse bibliométrique de la base de données WoS entre 1981 et 2018.

We assess the impact of environmental externalities on portfolio decisions in a lab-inthe-field experiment on finance professionals and students. Subjects show pro-environmental preferences, with...  

Finance is vital for the green energy transition, but access to low cost finance is uneven as the cost of capital differs substantially between regions. This study shows how modelled decarbonisation pathways for developing economies are disproportionately impacted by different weighted average cost of capital (WACC) assumptions.

This paper tries to fill this gap of research on the significance and evolution of renewable energy crowdfunding by providing a bibliometric analysis of academic work on renewable energy crowdfunding.

The article presents a ‘precautionary’ financial policy approach to deal with Climate-related financial risks instead of the current framework which largely focuses on market-based solutions

We investigate the real effects of mandatory climate-related disclosure by financial institutions on the funding of carbon-intensive industries.

The focus of this thesis is the French renewable energy crowdfunding sector because it has experienced a strong growth in the context of a favorable regulatory environment. I conduct a case study of a French crowdfunding platform specialized in renewable energy projects to better understand its business model and the risks associated with it.

This article aims to analyse the compliance of CAC 40 firms with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate‐related Financial Disclosures.

This article conducts a bibliometric analysis of the academic publications on the financing of renewable energies referenced in Web of Science up to June 2018. Our analysis reveals 11 main clusters. We highlight the fact that a majority of the sample focuses on market-based policy instruments used to support renewable energy development.

Download the report of the workshop organised by the Chair Energy and Prosperity

This article examines the role of sustainable finance and investment in Japan and how the Japanese financial sector can mitigate growing climate risks and support Japan's transition towards a zero-carbon, sustainable economy.

Article published in Industrial Relations (Avril 2020) This article examines the relationship between corporate governance and corporate sustainability by focusing on an essential component...  

This paper aims to review the growing, though limited, body of literature that has emerged in the late 2000s to study the quantitative determinants of RE development at a country level.

Article published in Climatic Change (2019) The finance sector’s response to pressures around climate change has emphasized disclosure, notably through the recommendations of the...  

Based on content analysis of firms’ reference documents over 2015-2017, this article examines CAC 40 firms’ compliance with the recommendations of TCFD by building a new index to measure the disclosure of environmental information.

This paper is an introduction to climate change risk for the financial sector (banks and investors). It aims to provide financial professionals, researchers and policymakers in the area of banking and investment with a snapshot of the current state of the art and guidance on the relevant literature to go further. 

This paper studies whether and how a country's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance relates to its sovereign borrowing costs in international capital markets.

This paper analyzes the potential benefit of using subsidies conditional on success or failure of an R&D program, rather than a flat subsidy.

In their response, experts associated with the Chair emphasize the predominance of accounting standards over non-financial information to guide corporate strategies. Accounting is not neutral, and the fact that it does not integrate human and natural capital is a major obstacle to achieving the EU's sustainability objectives.

The aim of this paper is to explain why there is insufficient long-term capital investment despite the abundant savings collected by a booming financial sector. Special attention is given to understanding the role of today’s accounting and prudential requirements.

The paper shows that International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) can affect long-term asset allocation of banks and insurance companies. International accounting standards do not differentiate between low and carbon intensive investment and do not take into account climate risks beforehand.

This paper examines the relationships between corporate governance and corporate sustainability by focusing on two main components of companies’ governance structure: boards of directors and investor relations officers.

This article seeks to investigate whether the fair value accounting may have short-termist bias on the financing of long-term investment.

Article published in Environmental and Resource Economics – September 2017 Abstract. We consider a partial equilibrium model to study the optimal phasing out of...  

Download all the material that has been produced during the Symposium for the High Level commission on Carbon prices (17 May 2017).

The article examines whether the extra-financial performance of countries on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors matters for sovereign bonds markets. Using a panel regression model over a data set with 23 OECD countries from 2007 to 2012, it shows that ESG ratings significantly decrease government bond spreads.

Impact investments are emerging as a new asset class of social finance, sometimes driven by multinational enterprises as part of their strategic corporate social...  

Impact investments are emerging as a new asset class of social finance. The article is based on on a three year action-research program conducted with Schneider Electric. It analyzes the perceptions of the Schneider Electric impact investing fund’s managers’ regarding emerging societal performance management procedures they were urged to adopt. 

Le conflit au Moyen-Orient a rappelé le besoin d’accélérer la transition énergétique, mais le besoin d’investissements massifs concerne bien autres domaines. Comment les financer, alors que la pression sur les finances publiques s’accroît et que de nombreux projets ne sont pas assez rentables pour attirer spontanément les investisseurs privés ? Cette table-ronde réunira des experts...

Séminaire organisé par la chaire Energie et Prospérité Quelle politique publique pour la décarbonation des sites industriels ? Réflexions à partir du cas du...  

La crise climatique est source de risques financiers désormais reconnus comme porteurs d’incertitudes multiples, et susceptibles de détériorer l’équilibre du système comme celui de ses acteurs. Ce séminaire sera l’occasion d’aborder plusieurs questions stratégiques soulevées par les risques climatiques tant pour les banques que pour les autorités de tutelle.

Séminaire en présence d'Adam George (SOAS, University of London). Adam George présente un modèle macroéconomique SFC environnemental britannique intégrant émissions de CO2 et investissements verts de tous les agents économiques. Le modèle trimestriel analyse l'impact des politiques énergétiques selon le rapport capital vert/capital conventionnel. Quatre scénarios fiscaux verts sont testés (2022-2035) : taxe carbone, investissement...

Dans un contexte international radicalement nouveau, l’Europe cherche à garder sa place dans l’économie mondiale et affirme sa volonté d’aller vers l’autonomie stratégique. Deux table-rondes discuteront du rôle du secteur bancaire et financier dans cette ambition, faisant dialoguer des représentants du monde financier, des experts et académiques, ainsi que des politiques et représentants du monde...

Face aux limites de la finance révélées par la crise des subprimes, les banques publiques ont été mises en avant pour leur capacité à financer des projets de taille importante, à maturité longue, générant des externalités positives. Ce séminaire questionne l’inflexion du cadre institutionnel européen : va-t-elle ralentir la transition écologique ? Est-elle de...

Ce séminaire porte sur la finance solidaire et la finance à impact qui sont considérées comme des modes de financement alternatifs ou complémentaires aux circuits financiers traditionnels. Il interroge en particulier l’évolution de ces deux types de finances au regard de leurs objectifs affichés, étant donné leur essor important depuis une quinzaine d’années.

Ce séminaire sera consacré aux enjeux de gouvernance d'entreprise en lien avec la transition écologique.

Ce séminaire vise à mettre en perspective les pratiques dites de management climat des entreprises, en se focalisant en particulier sur le rôle des normes de durabilité comme levier de décarbonation des entreprises.

Comme l’a rappelé le GIEC dans son rapport d’avril 2022, les flux financiers sont très éloignés de la trajectoire qui conduirait aux objectifs d’une économie bas-carbone. Face à la « double matérialité » du risque écologique pour le secteur financier, le cadre prudentiel actuel présente des limites.

France Stratégie and the Chair Energy et Prosperity are teaming up to organize a workshop on the contribution of the financial system to the energy transition and climate stabilization. The

The Chair Energy and Prosperity is partner of the International Symposium on Money, Banking and Finance, annual meeting of the European Research Group on Money Banking and Finance.

Quand la finance s’intéresse aux risques financiers posés par le réchauffement climatique En septembre 2015, Mark Carney, gouverneur de la Banque d’Angleterre et Président...  

Dans le cadre de son semestre thématique consacré au financement de la transition énergétique, la Chaire énergie et prospérité a organisé une seconde session...  

Subject of the worskshop “CO2 pricing and sectoral complementary policies” Climate policies are multi-faceted: along with carbon pricing, multiple targeted sectoral policies are now...