Financial Economics of

Climate and Sustainability

A Collaborative Global Doctoral Reading Group

for Climate Finance Researchers

Why this collaborative doctoral reading group?

Climate change is one of the most critical issues facing the planet and will require massive flows of capital. Finance will be instrumental in facilitating the transition to lower-carbon economies. Business schools need to be able to train the next generation of finance professionals. To do this, we will need far more professors trained to teach climate finance.
Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (FECS) seeks to be an important, timely, and catalytic development in the climate finance space designed to support the develop the next generation of scholars and educators and to create a community of researchers in this field.

Meet the FECS Reading Group Faculty

Ben Caldecott
University of Oxford

Geoffrey Heal
Columbia University

Laura Starks
University of Texas

Patrick Bolton
Imperial College of London

Stefano Giglio
Yale University

Caroline Flammer
Columbia University

Johannes Stroebel
New York University

Marcin Kacperczyk
Imperial College of London

Peter Tufano
Harvard University

Stefan Reichelstein
Stanford University University of Mannheim

Reading Group Information

  • FECS has both global and local elements. Core Sessions are available to all students globally. Schools determine locally how to offer the reading group At some schools, a version of FECS is offered for credit; local instructors may hold additional sessions and will set course requirements (typically a paper). At schools where a course is not available for credit, students may audit the course; but local coordinators may offer enrichment sessions or supervise independent study or research. Contract your local faculty coordinator for details.

  • FECS will be taught from Jan 30-April 23, 2024 on Tuesdays from 11:00-13:00 EST (or local equivalent)

    Jan 30 Introduction to climate science

    Feb 6 Climate, Sustainability, Economic and Finance Theory 1

    Feb 13 Climate, Sustainability, Economic and Finance Theory 2

    Feb 20 Climate and Asset Pricing (Theory)

    Feb 27 - Climate, Accounting, and Corporate Carbon Disclosures

    March 5 Sustainable Finance: Investing in Equity

    March 12 OFF, no class

    March 19 - Climate and Asset Pricing (Empirics)

    March 26 - Sustainable Finance 2: Investing in Debt

    April 2 - Climate and Corporate Finance

    April 9 - Climate and Household Finance

    April 16- Climate and Financial Institutions

    April 23 - Wrap up and Discussion

  • The reading list for Spring 2024 can be found here.

  • The weekly two-hour core reading group sessions for all students will be held on Tuesdays in synchronous Zoom sessions. This is a global synchronous reading group, so no time is ideal; our classes are Tuesdays from 16:00-18:00 GMT (or 11 am-1 pm EST). Each session will provide an overview of the topic and discuss 4-5 research papers, but discussions may be continued locally at your school.

  • Participants will get access to the synchronous Reading Group Sessions, slides for each class, additional resources including a database of climate finance papers, a database of useful databases, and news about climate finance conferences and opportunities. Access to this material will be through a reading group Dropbox, available to participants approved by the local school coordinator.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • FECS offers insight into the field of climate finance aimed at Doctoral students, post-docs, researchers and faculty to build a new generation of climate finance scholars and educators.

  • Our theory of change is straightforward: (1) Solving the climate crisis will demand that the financial system deploys trillions of dollars a year across the globe; (2) business schools—and finance professors—need to take a leadership role in education and research to support this historic movement of capital, but currently there are few trained academics, an exceedingly small body of literature, and a lack of courses; (3) for business schools to lead, we need to train an entire new generation of finance scholars, but to date, there are no doctoral courses in climate finance; and (4) through creating a global doctoral course, taught by respected leaders in the nascent field, and available to students, post docs, and faculty around the world, we can catalyze the development of the community of climate finance scholars and educators. Our model leverages scale, specialization, and a multiplier effect. We scale through reaching students at multiple schools; we specialize by tapping the diverse expertise of a global teaching team; we multiply by targeting doctoral students, post-docs, and young faculty who can then teach many more students.

  • FECS is designed to train academics who will conduct research and teach in the field of climate finance. It covers current research in the field as well as research methods, rather than current business practice. Pre-requisites for the course are doctoral level training in economics, finance, or accounting.

  • This course is being offered at a number of institutions and is intended for doctoral students, post-docs, and researchers. Generally, those who are interested in advancing research on climate finance are welcomed to join.

  • No. The Core Session Faculty have come together to voluntarily offer this course. There is no charge to participating schools or students.

  • The decision whether to award course credit or a certificate—as well as the requirements to do so—are set by each local participating school. Contact your course convener.

  • Currently, FECS is available for doctoral students, post-docs, and researchers at many schools. See the list of schools and course conveners .

  • If you are one of the participating schools, contact your local convener for information.

  • Please visit our contact page and get in touch with your local course convener to learn more.

  • We require that a faculty member at a local institution serve as the local course coordinator—at a minimum to ensure that all students have the proper training to benefit from FECS. If your schools is not listed, contact a faculty member at your school and ask them follow the instructions on ‘Contact us’ to be a local FECS faculty coordinator. There is no cost for students or schools to participate in FECS.

  • Yes! A separate companion pilot course, “Organizing the Climate Transition” will be offered online on Thursdays from January through March 2024. The goal is to prepare the next generation of management, strategy, and organization studies scholars for generating impactful, in-depth knowledge about and approaches to the challenges that organizations are currently facing as they navigate the climate transition. Contributing faculty are leading management, strategy, and organizations scholars who will lead sessions around themes including: systems, strategy, temporal perspectives, entrepreneurship and social movements, shareholder engagement, and insider driven change. For more information, see this description. This is a separate offering, so check with their organizers for details.

Participating Schools and Coordinators

For the complete list of participating institutions and local course coordinators, please follow this link.

Reflections on FECS from Educators and Students

  • “FECS is one of the most important advancements in responsible business education. What is likely one of the most innovative and important aspects of this course is that it embodies the type of collective action needed to tackle climate change: all business schools benefit from a course to which many have contributed.”

    Tima Bansal
    Professor and Chair of the Board of UN PRIME (Principles for Responsible Management Education)

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