16th International Workshop on Cooperative and Responsible Finance for Development – Call for papers

23 September 2024

Euricse announces the organization of the 16th Euricse International Workshop on Cooperative and Responsible Finance for Development. The workshop, organized in collaboration with the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Trento, Federcasse (Italian Federation of Cooperative Credit Banks) and with the support of EACB (the European Association of Co-operative Banks), will be held in Trento, Italy on June 19th and 20th 2025 at the University of Trento (Department of Economics and Management).

Introduction

The current capitalist phase is both unfair and deranged, and serious questions arise about its long-term compatibility with the ecosphere and the human civilization. The world of the economy is showing a growing rapacity towards the other components of the ecosystem (the natural, social, family, political, cultural worlds), directing and exploiting them for its own purposes. The digitalization itself both of the economy and the society and the new technologies raise serious doubts about its long-term control and sustainability. Global warming and its main consequences (droughts and floods, food crises and migrations) tend to subvert the ecological and human balance. At the same time, capital allocation systems move progressively away from the real economy and are no longer performing effectively and efficiently their function, increasing market risks, especially for ordinary savers. In other words, productive economy and finance diverge more and more from a morally responsible behaviour, concerned about the consequences, i.e. the externalities, both negative and positive, not only immediate, of their activities.

Recent EU policy shows a growing awareness of these challenges, increasing compliance requirements, and compliance risks in its regulations (e.g.: rules of environmental respect, verification for raw materials and products; regulations of AI). However, an excess of rigid and short-sighted bureaucratization jeopardizes the fine tuning between state and market, between control and private initiative.

This picture is exacerbated by pandemics and international conflicts, which weaken the global economy as a whole, and increase domestic and international imbalances, endangering social cohesion and international relations.

The renewal of the economy toward a more responsible and sustainable order is therefore crucial. This entails a new conception and a redesign of finance, where negative and positive externalities are included in the estimate of produced value, and thus favour positive social value and surplus creation with respect to a private one. This means to finance, besides technological innovation, also social innovation, investments in health and healthcare, social and personal services, online assistance, green industry, environmental protection and property. This can lead also to a revaluation of the localized production and of the domestic and community dimensions as places of economic activity, promoting an economy where value derives from relationships as well. The ambition should be to channel capital to creativity and to utility calculated in a holistic way: finance must return to being “at the service” and not master.

All this offers new potentials to cooperative and ethical banks and in general to alternative funds and financial institutions. However, during the twentieth century, governments and large private companies have often supplanted in this sector organizations with social participation, often accused, not always wrongly, of paternalism, non-professionalism or bureaucratization. Besides, their growth in size and membership may undermine their values, dedication, and sense of belonging of the members.

A consequent work of reengineering cooperative and ethical finance, also by using new technologies responsibly, requires choices and implementations that clearly signal: (i) what are its objectives, consequent to the evaluation of what is productive and what is predatory; (ii) which are its true stakeholders; (iii) which are its most appropriate forms of governance and what is the selection process of its leading cadres. Finally, what do European regulations and new cooperative laws mean for local banks, especially supply chain finance? Digitalization can help to control such processes, but new player, like digital service firms outside Europe try to take over this business. What are the challenges for cooperative bank networks?

Research Themes

The new unstable world setting: a new role for cooperative and ethical finance?
Big data, digitalization and new technologies: their effects both on society in general and on cooperative finance and communities in particular.
New approaches and new institutions for responsible and sustainable finance and investments.
The role of financial services and local banks for economic success in regional and in global markets.
The concept and procedures of retaining or establishing the link with local societies.
Ways to diversify the credit risk of local banks without endangering their support of local communities.
Research on the management and the special role of cooperative banks in the economy.
Cooperative banks and EU regulations; reforms of cooperative law.
Governance issues for coop and ethical banks deriving from consolidation, centralization, de-mutualization, re-mutualization and the use of hybrid structures.
Social venture investments, development finance, climate and green finance based on private investors, both in a global and European perspective, with reference also to the European Green Deal.
Role of financial cooperatives and other local banks in addressing market failures induced by climate crisis.
Cooperative and ethical banks’ engagement in social finance to encourage sustainable development and social economy.
Searching for fertile ground for the diffusion of the cooperative and ethical banking model: prerequisites, socio-economic coincidence and need within and beyond the European level.

Scientific Committee

Silvio Goglio, University of Trento, Italy (chair)
Yiorgos Alexopoulos, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
Giorgio Caselli, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Giovanni Ferri, Lumsa University of Rome, Italy
Detlev Hummel, University of Potsdam, Germany
Juan Lopez, Federcasse, Italy
Eric Meyer, University of Münster, Gemany

Workshop Methodology

The methodology of the workshop is interdisciplinary and integrative. There will be only plenary sessions in order to stimulate interaction, exchange of ideas and debate. As a workshop, particular effort and time will be dedicated to the discussion of the papers: researchers are therefore invited to also present works in progress, or in view of doctoral thesis.

The Workshop will be held in physical presence, with the possibility of remote connection (via Zoom) for listeners only.

The Scientific Committee will not only examine the papers by their scientific and innovative value, but it will try to achieve a balance between the workshop themes.

A limited number of scholarships designed to encourage the participation of young researchers will be offered. For more details, please visit our website www.euricse.eu or write to organizational secretary [email protected] after March 2025.

Important dates

All abstracts should be prepared in A4 format (Times New Roman, size 12 fonts, single-spaced) and be no more than 500 words length. Authors’ full title, name, address, organization and email address should be included at the end of the abstract.

Abstracts are invited up to the end of December 2024 to the following email address: [email protected].

The Scientific Committee will carefully review the applications and advise the selected authors to extend the abstracts into the full papers, which must be sent to the organizers by the end of March 2025.

The authors of accepted papers will be notified by the end of April 2025.

For more information about the Workshop please contact: [email protected].