Call for Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Economic Transition: Building a Stable and Resilient Global Economy for a Sustainable Future
Host: Centre for Financing a Sustainable Future, Heriot-Watt University
Date: 6 August 2026
Venue: Panmure House, Edinburgh
Overview
AI is rapidly transforming economic activity, financial markets, and development pathways across the world. This comprehensive adjustment is occurring globally during a perfect storm of disruptive AI, economic deglobalization,and environmental tipping points. From improving risk assessment and capital allocation to enhancing resource efficiency and infrastructure planning, AI offers significant opportunities to accelerate sustainable development and support the transition towards more resilient and inclusive economies. At the same time, it raises pressing questions concerning transparency, accountability, governance, inequality, labour displacement, and systemic risk. These developments are extending to the wider economy, where AI-driven productivity gains coexist with structural displacement, and the transition toward more sustainable economic models must contend with the fact that dataintensive technologies are themselves resource- and energy-intensive. The urgency of the sustainability agenda
demands that financial systems become faster, more accurate, and more forward-looking in pricing transition risk, precisely the capabilities AI promises but does not automatically deliver. This workshop addresses the questions at the heart of that transition: can AI-driven financial and economic systems be steered toward sustainability, stability, and resilience, or does the logic of data-driven optimisation pull in the opposite direction? Can multilateral cooperation on multiple fronts be restored and strengthened to ensure prudential governance of AI and enable realization of the full positive potential of AI? This workshop will bring together researchers from economics, finance, sustainability sciences, and AI to examine these tensions, and particularly welcome work that goes beyond assuming that technological progress and systemic wellbeing naturally converge.
Themes and Topics
We welcome submissions on topics including, but not limited to:
- AI and productivity: structural transformation, sectoral displacement, and distributional impact
- AI and finance: pricing of climate and transition risks, data disclosure, algorithmic trading, and financial stability
- AI and global governance: North-South perspectives on regulation, trade restrictions, and the reform of
international institutions (UN, WTO) - The digital sector in a changing geopolitical, economic and ecological landscape: global governance
architecture, AI regulation - AI-driven economic transformation: digital finance, global institutional reform, geopolitical uncertainty, and the
future of multilateral cooperation - AI in a changing world: managing the interaction between technological innovation, geopolitical tensions,
economic reconfiguration, and ecological constraints - China’s economic challenges and global governance: Thucydides Trap, Kindleberger Trap, and the tragedy
of the global commons in trade, finance and environment - Circular economy, sustainability and financial risk: decarbonization, biodiversity, data governance, ESG,
greenwashing, and political risk
While the central theme is AI and Economic Transition, the workshop also welcomes outstanding
contributions across the broader fields of accounting, economics, finance, and sustainability. - Full call details here
Call for Papers
III Workshop on Frontiers of Macro-Labour Economics
Panmure House, Edinburgh
7–8 December 2026
The Department of Economics at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, is pleased to announce the third edition of the Workshop on Frontiers of Macro-Labour Economics, to be held at Panmure House, Adam Smith’s last remaining home, in the heart of Edinburgh.
The 2026 edition will take place in a particularly significant year, marking the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. This occasion provides a fitting setting for renewed discussion of the forces shaping labour markets, productivity, growth, inequality, and economic prosperity. The workshop aims to bring together leading and emerging scholars to discuss frontier research at the intersection of macroeconomics and labour economics, with a particular emphasis on questions of contemporary policy relevance.
The workshop will begin on the afternoon of Monday, 7 December, and conclude on the afternoon of Tuesday, 8 December 2026.
Keynote speakers
Rachel Ngai — London School of Economics
Attila Lindner — University College London
We welcome submissions of theoretical and empirical papers addressing recent advances in macro-labour economics. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Macroeconomic fluctuations and labour market outcomes
- Labour market frictions, wage rigidities, and job creation
- Labour market institutions and macroeconomic performance
- Inequality and the distribution of labour market outcomes
- Technological change, automation, and the future of work
- Growth, productivity, and structural transformation
- Monetary and fiscal policy and their labour market implications
- Labour market responses to climate change and environmental policies
- Demographic change, migration, and labour market adjustment
The workshop aims to foster dialogue between academics, early-career researchers, and policymakers. In addition to regular paper sessions, the programme will include a poster session, with a particular focus on PhD students and early-career scholars. This will provide an opportunity to present ongoing research, receive feedback from leading experts, and engage in academic discussion in a supportive environment.
Paper submission
Authors are invited to submit a full paper or extended abstract in PDF format by email to the Workshop Administrator, Karen Hiroz, at soss.research@hw.ac.uk.
The PDF file should be named using the surname and first name of the submitting author. For example, a paper submitted by Adam Smith should be named SmithAdam.pdf.
Important dates
Submission deadline: 31 August 2026
Decision notifications: 15 September 2026
There is no fee to present a paper or participate in the workshop.
For any inquiries, please email soss.research@hw.ac.uk.
We look forward to receiving your submissions and to welcoming you to Panmure House in Edinburgh in December 2026.
Local organisers
Atanas Christev, Heriot-Watt University
Cristina Tealdi, Heriot-Watt University