Submission Deadline for PhD workshop: 30 September 2026

9th Annual Conference in Liege, Belgium

Hosted by HEC Liège, Management School of the University of Liège

Program committee:

Marie Lambert (HEC Liège, ULiège)
Caterina Santi (HEC Liège, ULiège)
Patrick Schwarz (HEC Liège, ULiège)
Frederiek Schoubben (KU Leuven)
Naciye Sekerci (KU Leuven)

Scientific Committee

24 - 26 August 2026: The Annual GRASFI Conference

The 9th Annual GRASFI Conference is hosted by HEC Liège, Management School of the University of Liège

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Conference Outline

Welcome Address

Papers Presented:

Keynote and Roundtable Discussion: “Financial regulation and sustainability goals: a stock take after ten years” by Dr Alexander Lehmann

Papers Presented:

Textual Analysis and ESG

Papers Presented:

Beyond Greenwashing: ESG Disclosure Substance, Investor Flows, and Fund Behavior

Do Public ESG Concerns Affect Firm Performance?

How Employee Voice Informs Firm Valuation: Evidence from Glassdoor

Central Banks and Financial Stability

Papers Presented:

Beyond Carbon Pricing: Quantifying Transition Risks for Climate Stress Testing when Firms Differ in Climate Ambitions

The Price of Climate Talk: Central Bank Communication, Climate Governance, and Sovereign Risk Premia

Who Bears the Transition Risk? Uneven Climate Risk Assessment of SMEs Across German Banking Groups

Corporate Environmental Strategy

Papers Presented:

Climate Investment Irreversibility

Integrating Climate Into Corporate Finance: Global Evidence On Internal Carbon Pricing

Social Event: Taste of Liege

Papers Presented:

Green Bonds

Papers Presented:

Administrative and Market Frictions in the Choice Between Green and Conventional Bonds

The carbon footprint of green bonds: evidence from project-level data

When Politics Meets Green Finance: The Dynamics of Green Municipal Bond Issuance in the U.S.

Social Factors

Papers Presented:

Investor Democracy

The Social Risks of Generative AI

When Social Issues Matter: Retail Fund Flows and Social Concern

Firm Ownership and ESG

Papers Presented:

Asset Manager Co-employment: When Executives Sit on Both Sides of the Ballot

Doing Good by Doing Nothing? Passive Ownership and Environmental Performance

The political economy of asset ownership: Evidence from the global power sector

Keynote and Roundtable Discussion: “Value, Moral, and Impact: Sustainable Investing Goals, Actions, and Outcomes” by Prof Ayako Yasuda

Papers Presented:

Lunch

Papers Presented:

Physical Climate Risks

Papers Presented:

How Exposed are Banks to Physical Climate Risk?

Physical climate risks and equity markets: a survey of empirical evidence

Quantifying Global Cyclone Losses with Asset-Level Exposureand Dynamic Production Networks

Shareholder Engagement

Papers Presented:

Can Investor Coalitions Drive Corporate Climate Action?

Incident-Driven ESG Engagement

Tailor-to-Dyad: Configuring Microfoundational Shareholder Engagements on Sustainability

Transition Risk

Papers Presented:

Asset-level analysis of corporate value adjustment against climate transition risks: A comparison of stress test methodologies for the global power sector

Low-Carbon Transition Capacity: Green Revenues and Financial Constraints

Preempting Gas Bans: Policy Retrenchment and Credit Allocation

Biodiversity and Nature

Papers Presented:

Blended Finance for Biodiversity Conservation

Financing Nature: Investment Funds and Biodiversity Risks

The Role of Biodiversity Risk in Shaping Bank LendingDecisions

When Protection Is Contested: Corporate Giving and Protected Area Downgrades

Activism and Firm Sustainability

Papers Presented:

Climate Regulatory Risk and Shareholder Activism

Climate strikes and corporate emissions

Heterogeneous stakeholder pressure

NGOActivism: Exposure vs. Influence

Asset Pricing

Papers Presented:

Ambiguity in Attention to Climate Change and Corporate Bond Returns

Carbon Emissions Trading and Stock Price Informativeness: The International Evidence

The Price of Emissions: Carbon Risk in the European Equity Market

When Tastes Affect Asset Prices But Not Expected Returns

Conference Dinner

Papers Presented:

ESG and Household Finance

Papers Presented:

Carbon Pricing and Household Finance: How Banks Price Transition Risk in Auto Loans

Objective vs. Perceived Corporate Greenness: Do Individuals Understand Corporate Sustainability Information?

Picking Up the PACE: Loans for Residential Climate-Proofing

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Papers Presented:

International Conflict Penalty Inside Firms

Learning About Income Inequality: Long-Run Evidence from Pay Ratio Disclosures

Mind the Gap: Gender Discrimination in Loan Pricing Around the World

ESG Disclosure I

Papers Presented:

Corporate Omissions: Correcting the Bias in Carbon Reporting

Demystifying Cheap Sustainability Talks: Theory and Evidence

Portfolio Management and ESG I

Papers Presented:

Not in My Backyard: Portfolio Allocation under Water Scarcity

Short Sellers and Social Responsibility Ratings

Tilting the Wrong Firms? How Inflated ESG Ratings Negate Socially Responsible Investing under Information Asymmetries

Sustainable Consumers

Papers Presented:

Green Products

It’s not easy being green

Sentiment and Environmental Performance

ESG Disclosure II

Papers Presented:

Peer Groups Matter: Comparative Industry Effects in ESG Rating Disagreement

Strategic Environmental Deception

Venture Capital Backing and ESG Disclosure in Private Firms

Lunch

Papers Presented:

Portfolio Management and ESG II

Papers Presented:

Can US equity funds time ESG score updates?

Mutual Funds’ Discretionary Trades on Stock ESG Information

Sustainability labels vs. reality: how climate-friendly are green andESG funds?

Climate Commitments and Decarbonization

Papers Presented:

Anticipating corporate emissions depending on the ambition and early action of companies

Corporate Net Zero Targets: Have They Achieved Anything?

Financed Emissions and Banks’ Lending Portfolios

ESG Disclosure III

Papers Presented:

From Symbolic to Substantive Legitimacy: Investor Reactions to the Regulation of Greenwashing

Greenhushing and Reputational Threat: Theory and Evidence

To Disclose, or Not to Disclose: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Mandatory Climate-Related Disclosure

CEO Style and ESG

Papers Presented:

Moral Licensing at the Top: How CEO Awards Influence Corporate Pollution

The Informational Value of CEO Activism for Analysts

Green Innovations

Papers Presented:

Beliefs About the Climate Impact of Green Investing

Climate Change and Green Technology: Evidence from Patent Examiners

Close

Papers Presented:

Annual General Meeting of GRASFI Member Universities

Papers Presented:

Annual Conference News

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