Essex Finance Centre (EFiC) 2025 Conference in Banking and Corporate Finance

To find out more about our conference programme, including our roundtable panellists and all parallel sessions, please download our PDF.

We solicit papers in the following areas, in alphabetical order, but other related areas may also be considered:

• Banking and financial services
• Behavioural finance
• Big data applied to banking and finance
• Climate finance
• Corporate finance
• Corporate governance
• Digital finance
• Diversity and women in finance
• Entrepreneurial finance
• Financial crisis and resolution
• Fintech and financial innovation
• International finance
• Monetary policy and central banking
• Non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs)
• Political economy of central banking
• Portfolio and risk management
• Rethinking of financial regulation and supervision
• SMEs financing

Bo Becker

Bo Becker is the Cevian Capital Professor of Finance in the Department of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics and Director of the Swedish House of Finance. He previously worked at the University of Illinois and at Harvard Business School. Professor Becker has served as the department editor for finance at Management Science and an associate editor of the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science and Financial Management.

Professor Becker's research is on corporate finance, especially corporate credit markets. Recent topics include corporate bank lending and bond issuance through the business cycle, credit ratings, covenant structures of loans and bonds, in-court and out-of-court restructuring, and the impact of Covid-19 on corporate credit markets. His research has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and other journals. Professor Becker has been awarded several prizes and grants, including the Standard Life Prize for best paper in the ECGI Finance WP series, the Nordea Price for Best Corporate Finance Paper at the European Finance Association's annual meeting and the Lamfalussy Research Fellowship from the European Central Bank.

Best papers solicitation: Corporate Governance: An International Review

The Conference is pleased to announce the solicitation of the best papers on the theme of Financial Intermediation and Corporate Governance in the Journal of Corporate Governance: An International Review (CGIR).

Solicitation process:

• authors wishing to have their papers considered by the CGIR must indicate their interest explicitly in the submission email. Papers submitted for this solicitation must not be under review at any other journal or the CGIR, nor should they have been previously rejected by the CGIR
• a joint committee comprised of the Conference Committee and the CGIR Editorial Team will review accepted conference papers and invite selected authors for possible publication in the CGIR after the conference. Invited papers will undergo the Journal’s regular peer review process, maintaining the CGIR's high publication standards.

Conference committee

Claudia Girardone, Sotirios Kokas, Anna Sarkisyan (Essex Business School), Paola Brighi (University of Milan), Maria Letizia Guerra (University of Bologna), Maurizio Mussoni (University of Bologna, RCEA)

Local organising committees

Maria Letizia Guerra (University of Bologna), Paola Brighi (University of Milan), Maurizio Mussoni (University of Bologna, RCEA), Pierpaolo Pattitoni (University of Bologna, RCEA), Adriano Bellinvia (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Benedetta Amicizia (University of Bologna)

Scientific committee

Karim Abadir (Imperial College London, RCEA)
Rym Ayadi (Bayes Business School, EMANES)
Richard Baillie (Michigan State University, King’s College, RCEA)
Elena Beccalli (Catholic University of Milan)
Mascia Bedendo (University of Bologna)
Diana Bonfim (Banco de Portugal)
Udichibarna Bose (Essex Business School)
Fabio Braggion (Tilburg University)
Barbara Casu-Lukac (Bayes Business School)
Gilles Chemla (Imperial College London, RCEA)
Jerry Coakley (Essex Business School)
Paolo Coccorese (University of Salerno)
Douglas J Cumming (Florida State University)
Claudia Custodio (Imperial College London)
Manthos Delis (Audencia Business School)
Luísa Farinha (Banco de Portugal)
Franco Fiordelisi (Essex Business School)
Ralph de Haas (EBRD)
Vasso Ioannidou (Bayes Business School)
Neil Kellard (Essex Business School)
Alexandros Kontonikas (Essex Business School)
Thomas Lambert (Erasmus University)
Angela Maddaloni (European Central Bank)
Alexander Michaelides (Imperial College London)
Claudio Morana (University of Milano-Bicocca, RCEA)
Ekaterini Panopoulou (Essex Business School)
George Panos (University of Glasgow)
Fotios Pasiouras (Montpellier Business School)
Farzad Saidi (University of Bonn)
Michael Straughan (Bank of England)
Ian Tonks (University of Bristol)
Serafeim Tsoukas (University of Glasgow)
John O.S. Wilson (University of St Andrews)
Geoffrey Wood (Western University London Ontario)
Eliza Wu (University of Sydney Business School)
José Liñares-Zegarra (Essex Business School)
Valeria Venturelli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)

Interested authors should submit their paper by email to efic@essex.ac.uk by Monday 24 March 2025 using the following format for the file name: EFiC_SubmittingAuthorSurname_PaperTitle.pdf.

PhD students should indicate if their submission is for the PhD session, otherwise it will be considered for the main session.

Authors interested in the publication opportunity should indicate their interest in the submission email.

We strongly encourage early submissions. Periodic reviews of submissions will be conducted, therefore, it is possible for authors to receive decision notifications prior to the final decision deadline on Monday 7 April 2025.

Registration for the conference is now open. Book your place.

*Until 12 May 2025

**Until 26 May 2025

• Submission deadline: Monday 24 March 2025
• Decision notification: Monday 7 April 2025
• Standard registration deadline: Monday 12 May 2025
• Late registration deadline: Monday 26 May 2025
• Conference dates: Thursday 26 June - Friday 27 June 2025

Special rates at a number of hotels near the conference site are available to conference participants. When booking, please quote EFiC2025.