Best Paper Award at Sustainable Financial Innovation Conference
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Congratulations to Jingjing Wang, PhD student at the University of Liverpool Management School, who recently won the Best Paper Award at the prestigious Sustainable Financial Innovation Centre (SFiC) Annual Conference 2022 which took place on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 November 2022 in Dubai and was hosted by Birmingham Business School and Florida Atlantic University.
Co-authored by Professor Chris Florackis and Dr Xi Fu, the award-winning paper is titled Political Connections, Environmental Violations and Punishment: Evidence from Heavily Polluting Firms in China which uses hand-collected data on violations of environmental regulations by heavily polluting firms in China, and examine the relationship between political connections and the probability of punishment for breach of such regulations.
Their findings highlight that from which politically connected directors resigned experience a significant increase in both the likelihood of ever being punished for environment-related violations and the frequency of punishment. Their evidence indicates that in the absence of effective regulation, political connections can be costly to the environment as they strongly affect the enforcement of environmental regulations.
Commenting on the award, Chris Florakis and Xi Fu said: “We are excited for the best paper award and very happy to see that our hard work paid off especially that of Jingjing, our brilliant PhD student, who has put a lot of time and effort on this project.
“We look forward to finalizing this work and hope to produce findings that are relevant and have direct implications for policy makers and firms operating in institutional environments that suffer from corruption, political interference and weak enforcement mechanisms.”
Jingjing added: “It is a great honour to attend this prestigious conference and receive this award on my final year of PhD studies at the Management School. As a PhD student, I am grateful to have a chance to work with my supervisors and so thrilled that our joint work can be recognized.
“This achievement will boost my confidence and help me move forwards in my academic career. Big thanks to my supervisors Professor Chris Florakis and Dr Xi Fu who always encourage and support me as much as they can during the process! I would also like to thank the funding support from ‘ULMS PhD Conference Support Scheme’ that allows me to take advantage of this opportunity!”