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
Legacy of Adam Smith Workshop
Workshop programme available here
Workshop
Call for Papers
Workshop on Frontiers of Macro – Labour Economics
October 16-17, 2025
The Department of Economics at the Edinburgh Business School (Heriot-Watt University) is pleased to announce the Workshop on Frontiers of Macro-Labour Economics. This workshop will bring together leading and emerging scholars to discuss cutting-edge research on the interaction between macroeconomics and labour markets. We encourage submissions encompassing both theoretical and empirical developments. The workshop features two distinguished keynote speakers:
Eric French (University of Cambridge)
Limor Golan (Washington University in St. Louis)
We welcome papers on a broad range of topics related to recent advances bridging macroeconomics and labour economics, including (but not limited to):
- Macroeconomic fluctuations and labour market outcomes
- Labour market frictions and wage rigidities
- Monetary/fiscal policy and the labour market
- Labour market institutions and macroeconomic outcomes
- Inequality and the distribution of labour market outcomes
- Macroeconomic impact of demographic trends
- The effect of technological change on the labour market
- Migration and inequality
- Labour market responses to climate change and policies
The workshop will be held in person at Panmure House, the last remaining home of Adam Smith, located in the heart of Edinburgh. The event will commence on the afternoon of Thursday, 16 October, and conclude on the afternoon of Friday, 17 October.
Paper Submission:
Please submit your paper or extended abstract in PDF format by emailing it to researchsupport.soss@hw.ac.uk. Name the file using the submitting author’s last and first name. For example, a submission from Adam Smith should be named: SmithAdam.pdf.
There will be both regular and poster sessions, with leading scholars in both.
Important Dates:
| Deadline for submission | 31 July 2025 |
| Decision notifications | 15 August 2025 |
There is no fee to present a paper or participate in the workshop.
Please don’t hesitate to direct inquiries to the workshop administrator, at researchsupport.soss@hw.ac.uk.
We are looking forward to your submission and welcoming you to Panmure House in October!
Local Organizers: Atanas Christev (Heriot-Watt University), Irina Merkurieva (University of St Andrews), Cristina Tealdi (Heriot-Watt University).
We gratefully acknowledge support from the Scottish Economic Society and Heriot-Watt University.
Workshop
Frontiers of Macro-Labour Economics
12-13 December, 2024 | Panmure House
Presented by Heriot-Watt University’s Department of Economics at Edinburgh Business School, this workshop will bring together leading and emerging scholars to discuss cutting-edge research on the interaction between macroeconomics and labour market dynamics. Keynote speakers will include Tito Boeri (Bocconi University) and Francis Kramarz (Collège de France and Uppsala University), and the workshop welcomes submissions on a broad range of topics related to recent advances bridging macroeconomics and labour economics.
Submit your paper by 31 August 2024 and receive notification by 16 September 2024.
Seminars
Accounting Seminar Schedule (Semester 2, 2023/2024)
Venue: EBS1 BOARDROOOM
| Date | Speaker | Institution | Presentation Title |
| 16/2/2024 | Prof Martin Quinn | Queen’s University Belfast | Meeting the Many Legitimate Demands for Improvements in Public Services – A Linguistic Analysis of Local Government Annual Budgets |
| 28/2/2024 | Dr Feng Mengyuan | University of Glasgow | “Accounting Technologies, Accountability Relations, and Digital Governance: Insights from Didi in China” |
| 6/3/2024 | Dr Hafez Abdo | University of Nottingham | “Harmonising Accounting for Extractive Industries: Measuring Levels of Harmony in Accounting for Pre-Development Costs” |
| 7/3/2024 | Prof Lee Parker | University of Glasgow | “From the Wrong Side of the Tracks” Plain Speaking From the AAAJ Editor” |
| 13/3/2024 | Dr Shuo Want | University of Edinburgh | TBC |
Economics Seminar Schedule (Semester 1, 2024/25)
| Week | Date | Speaker | University | Presentation title |
| Week 1 | 13.09.2024 (Friday) | Manolis Galenianos | RHUL | |
| Week 3 | 27.09.2024 (Friday) | Neil Cummins | LSE | |
| Week 5 | 11.10.2024 (Friday) | Michael Hatcher | University of Southampton | |
| Week 7 | 25.10.2023 (Friday) | Dakshina G. De Silva | University of Lancaster | |
| Week 9 | 8.11.2023 (Friday) | Douglas Scott | University of York |
Economics Seminar Schedule (Semester 2, 2024/2025)
| Week | Date | Speaker | University | Presentation title |
| Week 3 | 31.01.2025 (Friday) | Arnaud Philippe | Bristol | |
| Week 5 | 14.02.2025 | Leonhard Lades | Stirling | |
| Week 7 | 28.02.2025 | Jorge Bonilla | Munich | |
| Week 9 | 14.03.2025 | |||
| Week 11 | 28.03.2025 | |||
| Week 13 | 11.04.2025 | Almundena Sevilla | LSE | |
| 09.05.2025 | Robert Sauer | RHUL |
Economics Seminar Schedule (Semester 2, 2023/2024)
Venue: MBG20; Time: 3:15-4:15
| Date | Speaker | Institution | Presentation Title |
| 02/02/2024 | Mebgdi Song | University College Dublin | TBC |
| 16/02/2024 | Florian Szucs | WU Vienna | TBC |
| 01/03/2024 | Mirko Moro | University of Stirling | TBC |
| 15/03/2023 | Ester Faia | Goethe University, Frankfurt | TBC |
Finance Seminar Series (Semester 2, 2023/2024)
Venue: PG202; Time: 14:00-15:00
| Date | Speaker | Institution | Presentation Title |
| 26/1/2024 | Ben Sila | Edinburgh University | Corporate Hiring Under Uncertainty |
| 9/2/2024 | Agyenim Boateng | University of Leeds Beckett | Special session on how to publish papers in ABS 4* journals |
| 8/3/2024 | Sohnke Bartram | University of Warwick | TBC |
| 22/3/2024 | Bing Xu | University of Leeds | TBC |