EFA 2025: SKEMA at the heart of finance research
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EFA 2025: SKEMA at the heart of finance research

Event
By Grégoire Kraoul–Riera
Summary

From 20 to 23 August 2025, SKEMA Business School hosted the 52nd Annual Meeting of the European Finance Association (EFA) on its Grand Paris campus.

SKEMA Business School Campus Grand Paris, lieu de réception de l'EFA Annual Meeting.
© Lora Barra / SKEMA Business School

Founded in 1974, the EFA brings together an international community of researchers, practitioners and doctoral students specialising in all areas of finance, from corporate finance and market finance to household finance, sustainable finance and financial intermediation. The association’s mission is to promote and disseminate high-level research, notably by holding an annual forum to foster academic exchange: the EFA Annual Meeting.

Every summer, this conference draws academics and practitioners from around the world to discuss key topics in finance, with several prestigious awards presented to recognise outstanding speakers, researchers and doctoral students.

An edition covering a variety of topics, reflecting a financial sector in touch with reality

This 52nd meeting marked the EFA’s return to France after an absence of more than 25 years. It was a record-breaking edition: 2,024 academic papers were submitted, 216 were accepted, the programme featured 72 sessions, and the event attracted more than 800 participants. We owe this success to the efforts of Laurent-Emmanuel Calvet (economist and professor of finance at SKEMA), Program Chair of the event, and Helen Bollaert (professor of finance and director of SKEMA’s FAIRR research centre), who led the local organising committee.

Laurent-Emmanuel Calvet’s programme included seven special sessions organised in collaboration with major institutional partners, focusing on key issues in finance research. These sessions complemented the remaining 65, which were grouped into six themes: Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance, Financial Intermediation, Household Finance, Sustainable Finance, and Market Microstructure.

The event also featured several ad hoc sessions led by internationally renowned researchers. Monika Piazzesi, professor at Stanford University, former president of the American Finance Association, and recipient of the Elaine Bennett and Bernacer Prizes, delivered the plenary keynote, presenting a highly innovative perspective on asset returns as carbon taxes.

Finally, this edition’s plenary panel focused on the links between finance and climate change. It included Andrew Blease (Moody’s), Lars Peter Hansen (University of Chicago, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Economics), and Catherine Wolfram (MIT, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the U.S. Department of the Treasury). The discussions highlighted the importance of integrating climate risks into financial mechanisms and designing new instruments to support the energy transition.

Special sessions rich in innovative proposals

The special sessions opened the debate on a broad array of topics at the intersection of academic research and public policy.

The discussions highlighted the challenges of sustainable finance, including the economic models of the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) rating agencies, the limits of integrating environmental criteria, and the ambivalent effects of industrial regulations. They also explored the changes occurring in the sovereign debt markets, the rise of ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and their systemic implications, as well as how credit contract structures and the role of large investors influence monetary policy transmission.

The discussions on pensions underscored the challenges of stock market participation costs and risk regulation, while those on asset pricing stressed the need for robust data and increased vigilance vis-à-vis individual behaviour. Finally, the management of extreme risks in the insurance sector revealed tensions between financial strength, differentiated exposure to climate and transition risks, and a move away from the sector’s traditional role of risk pooling.

A comprehensive programme focused on sustainable finance

In addition to the seven special sessions, the 65 scientific sessions covered all major areas of contemporary financial research. The discussions highlighted how household choices, corporate financing structures and technological innovation are profoundly transforming the dynamics of financial markets and the transmission of economic policies.

In banking and non-banking intermediation, the enduring role of liquidity channels and regulation, as well as the rise of private credit providers and financial technologies, were explored in depth, along with their contrasting implications for stability and access to finance. On the household side, the discussions underscored the importance of preferences, financial literacy, and access conditions for housing and credit in wealth building and resilience to debt.

Particular emphasis was placed on sustainable finance, which sparked lively debates on the economic cost of climate policies, the effects of biodiversity on asset valuation, and the credibility of ESG commitments, weighing virtuous incentives against the risks of greenwashing. Finally, the contributions on the money and bond markets shed light on market resilience in the face of recent shocks, showing how post-crisis regulation has enhanced the ability to absorb shocks while altering the balance between liquidity and immediacy.

Overall, these sessions demonstrated that academic research is attentive to the stability of the system, considering long-term challenges, and grounded in increasingly detailed empirical data. SKEMA Publika is fully engaged with these trends, particularly through its analyses of sustainable finance.

From academic research to operational solutions: insights from SKEMA Publika

The scientific debates at the EFA Annual Meeting highlighted the complexity of the interactions between finance, regulation and the ecological transition. Building on these reflections, SKEMA Publika’s work offers concrete avenues for reconciling competitiveness and sustainability, emphasising the importance of governance and legal instruments.

The smart law approach, as developed by Diane de Saint-Affrique and Dhafer Saïdane, proposes adaptive, gradual legal frameworks capable of supporting innovation without unduly increasing the regulatory burden. In other words, it aims to promote the ecological transition without undermining business competitiveness, through the creation of pragmatic regulations that combine elements of soft law and hard law. The goal is to achieve the desired social and sustainability objectives while taking into account the constraints faced by the different sectors. At SKEMA Publika, we believe that establishing rules in consultation with all stakeholders (businesses, civil society, and policymakers) is a pragmatic and essential approach to promoting sustainable finance in a realistic manner.

In the same vein, their research on corporate self-regulation shows that internal mechanisms for transparency, monitoring and sanctioning can effectively complement regulatory requirements to lend credibility to ESG commitments. Dhafer Saïdane’s analyses of CSR and governance underscore that sustainability depends as much on the organisational and democratic choices made within companies as on pressure from the financial markets. Finally, their work also explores the role of sustainable finance as a driver of competitiveness rather than a constraint, highlighting how the ecological transition can become a source of innovation and strategic advantage.

This research aligns with the key debates at the EFA Annual Meeting, particularly those on the cost of the transition and the alignment of incentives, while offering a practical perspective on governance. It provides a complementary interpretive lens through which the challenges of transition can be seen as opportunities for economic and social development.

Researcher’s testimonials

Monika Piazzesi revisits the main takeaways from her EFA 2025 plenary lecture, where she proposed an innovative perspective on green finance. In her research, she shows that the returns on ‘green’ investments can be understood as behaving like a carbon tax: the more emissions a company produces, the higher its cost of capital rises, prompting it to reduce its emissions.

This mechanism works as long as investors take carbon footprint into account in their decisions. To maximise emissions reductions, Monika Piazzesi emphasises the importance of directing these incentives towards sectors such as electricity, where technological substitution is most feasible. Finally, she notes that sustainable finance could inspire future professionals to design incentive-based financial products that help make the economy less polluting.

Recommendations:

  • A carbon tax is the most effective policy lever for tackling climate change. Its goal is to reduce carbon emissions by making polluting activities more costly for companies.
  • If it is not possible to introduce a carbon tax, financial markets should replicate its effects through a ‘replicating asset price schedule’ that reflects investor preferences, thereby acting as an implicit carbon tax. In practice, this means building asset portfolios that reflect preferences for ‘green’ versus polluting investments. As investors avoid polluting companies, demand for these companies’ securities falls, which tends to increase their financing costs. Conversely, ‘green’ assets become more attractive and their financing costs decrease.
About her

Monika Piazzesi is the Joan Kenny Professor of Economics at Stanford University and an affiliate professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. A recognised expert in macro-finance, her work focuses on monetary policy and bond and real estate markets. A former president of the American Finance Association (2024), she has received the Elaine Bennett Research Prize and the Bernacer Prize for Research in Macroeconomics and Finance. A research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where she directed the Asset Pricing Program, she is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. Before Stanford, she taught at the University of Chicago and UCLA.

In this interview, Lars Peter Hansen emphasises that the uncertainty surrounding climate change should not lead to inaction, but should instead prompt action to tackle the risks. He stresses the need to adopt a long-term perspective, particularly by investing in clean and sustainable technologies. He also highlights the importance of stable international cooperation. In his view, the challenge is also educational: it is about integrating a broader concept of uncertainty into decision-making processes, moving beyond traditional statistical approaches.

Recommandations:

  • View uncertainty as a driver to accelerate political decision-making. Theurgency of climate change is a case in point: the longer policymakers delay action, the more costly the consequences will be for society. It is necessary to invest in green energy today to limit future damage.
  • Establish a stable and durable framework for cooperation between countries to address the climate emergency. This framework should be resilient to political cycles, given the short-lived nature of governments.
About him

Lars Peter Hansen is a professor at the University of Chicago (David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor) and Director of the Macro Finance Research Program at the Becker Friedman Institute. A renowned specialist in economic dynamics, he works at the intersection of macroeconomics, finance and statistics, and has developed innovative models to analyse how economic agents adapt to uncertainty and changing environments. His work has profoundly transformed the analysis of risk and its implications for financial markets and public policy. In 2013, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Catherine Wolfram revisits the key messages she conveyed during the EFA 2025 panel on finance and climate change. She notes that the consequences of global warming are not limited to rising temperatures, but also include the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters. She also highlights that the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), the EU’s carbon border pricing scheme, has opened a global debate on carbon pricing that could encourage more ambitious policies. Drawing on her experience at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, she calls for more direct dialogue between researchers and policymakers, to make research findings more actionable.

Recommandations:

  • To tackle climate change effectively, it is essential to understand that it is a multifaceted phenomenon, combining rising temperatures and natural disasters.
  • Carbon tax remains an effective tool for tackling climate change, and a debate on its broader implementation is needed.
  • Researchers have significant potential to influence policymakers. Society should collectively consider a strategy to translate research into concrete public policies.
About her

Catherine Wolfram is the William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. A recognised expert on energy markets and their interactions with climate policy, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate and Energy Economics at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2021–2022) and directed the Environment and Energy Economics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). A graduate of Harvard (AB) and holder of a PhD in economics from MIT, she taught at Harvard and later at Berkeley, where she held the Cora Jane Flood Chair. Her current research focuses on the links between climate, energy and trade, including sanctions in oil markets.

Helen Bollaert, head of the local organising committee, reflects on the preparation of the EFA Annual Meeting, a true “testament to the reputation for excellence that SKEMA has built in the field” of finance. Hosting the EFA Annual Meeting marks an important milestone for finance research at SKEMA, bringing the school recognition and access to an international network that will enable our researchers to continue advancing in the years ahead.

About her

Helen Bollaert is a professor of finance at SKEMA Business School and director of the FAIRR (Finance and Accounting Insights on Risk and Regulation) research centre. Her expertise is in mergers and acquisitions, and in the personality and remuneration of executives. A graduate of ESCP’s Master in Management (PGE) with prior audit experience in one of the Big Four firms, she earned her PhD in finance from the University of Lille in 2011 (Doctoral Thesis Award) and her accreditation to supervise research (French HDR) in 2016.

Laurent-Emmanuel Calvet reflects on his role as Programme Chair of EFA 2025, encompassing the design of the conference’s academic programme as well as fundraising, communications, and event logistics. EFA 2025 was an important milestone for Laurent-Emmanuel Calvet: he was elected President of the EFA, a fitting recognition of a distinguished career spanning more than 25 years.

About him

Laurent-Emmanuel Calvet is a professor of finance at SKEMA Business School. A graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique and an engineer in the Corps des Ponts et Chaussées, he holds a PhD in economics from Yale University. Before joining SKEMA, he held professorships at other leading international institutions: Harvard, Imperial College Business School, HEC Paris, and EDHEC. A founding member of the CEPR Network on Household Finance, he is also an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London) and the Centre for Financial Studies (Frankfurt). His expertise is in household finance, financial asset valuation, and financial econometrics.

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