Palestinian artist Faraj Suleiman is on tour (recently Utrecht, next Paris, Dusseldorf and London). Book your tickets!

Questions on my mind is a beautiful song about longing for home - English lyrics here: lyricstranslate.com/en/fy-syl-br...

open.spotify.com/track/24yw67...

“They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,”

📣 New call for postdoctoral researchers!

We are seeking candidates with a doctorate in the social sciences for our research areas Political Economy (Prof. Dr. Lucio Baccaro) and Economic Sociology (Prof. Dr. Jens Beckert).

Please share widely!

s.gwdg.de/ySJx5p

Hey Christian! Could I be in here too? :)

The Long Heat, the book by Andreas Malm and I on carbon removal and geoengineering, will be released by @versobooks.bsky.social in October. It's available now for pre-ordering:

www.versobooks.com/en-gb/produc...

As the revision of the #SFDR comes to an end, I am joining @reclaimfinance.org and +120 experts in calling on the @ec.europa.eu exclude companies developing new fossil fuel projects a minimum criterion across all #SFDR product categories.
There's no room for new fossil fuels in sustainable funds!

Ahem, the meek European derisking state

Really important article with a razor-sharp argument: Contra the notion of universal ownership, @kprodani.bsky.social et al. show that Big-3 portfolios "largely exclude the very parts of the global economy where environmental harms will be most severe."

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Wonderful list. Would also love to be on it if still possible!

Update: this list has now 100 (!) women political economists to follow! 🤩

Thanks so much for the (self-)recommendations, I'm thrilled to connect and reconnect with you all here & so looking forward to learning more about your work!

Still 50 spots open! 🙋
go.bsky.app/QFrdfh3

Hi Graham, not sure I follow?

*small correction: should have added "e.g." in front of "big tech & financials" in the main post. Our argument is more about what they're not invested in than what they are invested in :) For the latter, Gibadullina 2023 offers a great overview, esp figures 4 and 8 (manufacturing is also prominent).

and @pgolka.bsky.social? :)

Perhaps also interesting for @jvtk.bsky.social, @danielagabor.bsky.social, @annekervers.bsky.social, @jasprblom.bsky.social, @simonschairer.bsky.social, @iliasalami.bsky.social, @nicolaranger.bsky.social, @nataschavanderzwan.bsky.social, @matthewarcher.bsky.social, @johanneslundb.bsky.social

Written with @estherturnhout.bsky.social, @casey-lynch.bsky.social & Ekaterina Svetlova! Building on the work of @benbraun.bsky.social, @johannespetry.bsky.social, @janfichtner.bsky.social, @bbonizzi.bsky.social, @anninak.bsky.social, @vgalaz.bsky.social, @romainsvartzman.bsky.social

We think that this might not be possible without collaborating with civil society to “follow the money” from the ground up. @forestsandfinance.bsky.social @globalwitness.org @greenpeaceusa.bsky.social @greenpeace.eu @foeeurope.bsky.social @milieudefensie.bsky.social @ran.org

The broader point: Instead of trying to equate & group together the financial materialities that ecological degradation poses to “civilization,” the economy, financial actors, and financial stability, let's empirically contrast and geographically situate them – including along class lines.

Mapping these along the palm oil supply chain shows that the Big Three are mainly invested in the downstream players (Unilever etc.) whereas “Fama’s quasi-laboratory” in the upstream criminal plantations. Unilever will likely be fine, so let's not put our hopes on the promise of universal ownership.

We screen their portfolios against a civil society dataset (Profundo 2024) that lists 6,770 companies publicly excluded by other financial institutions for ESG reasons. We focus on investments in those excluded for all ESG reasons, environmental, biodiversity, deforestation, and palm oil in SE Asia.

Side note/tangent: very much still processing all this information. Why is Vanguard invested in 699 companies in China that none of the others are invested in?

To understand the role that index providers might have in facilitating and decoupling environmental harm in SE Asia from related financial risks, we compare the geographic allocation, diversification, and “uniqueness” (i.e. no. companies the others don’t hold) of Dimensional (DFA) and the Big Three.

A self-described “quasi-laboratory for Eugene Fama,” it puts Fama and French's research “into practice” by investing in size (small) and value (cheap) stocks. The result: a lot of investments in upstream palm oil plantation companies - including notorious/criminal companies - in SE Asia.

We contrast the Big Three with Dimensional, a Texas-based asset manager closely tied to Fama, Scholes, Diamond, Merton, Miller, and French. Dimensional does *not* follow indices but rather pursues an “approach [that] combines a passive philosophy with active implementation” - factor investing.