GRETA Associati (Venice, Italy), Cattolica Assicurazioni (Verona, Italy), European Datawarehouse (Frankfurt, Germany), European Investment Bank (Luxembourg), European Investment Fund (Luxembourg) and Intesa Sanpaolo (Milan, Italy) are co-sponsors of a Conference to be held in Venice on September 23-24, 2021.

The Conference CREDIT 2021 will bring together academics, practitioners and PhD students working in various areas of financial and credit risk with the aim to create a unique opportunity for participants to discuss research progress and policy and industry-relevant insights as well as directions for future research.

Credit 2021 is the twentieth in a series of events dedicated to various aspects of credit risk and organised under the auspices of the Department of Economics and VERA - Venice centre in Economic and Risk Analytics for public policies - of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, ABI - Italian Banking Association, AIAF - Associazione Italiana per l'Analisi Finanziaria and the Joint Research Center, European Commission (Ispra, Italy).

The theme of this year’s conference is the relation between financial risk on the one hand and pandemic, climate and disaster risk, on the other hand, with particular attention to the possible compounding of different sources of risk.

Climate change is now widely recognized as a new source of financial risk which is relevant both at the level of households and individual institutions and the systemic level. In particular, the many central banks and financial institutions that have joined the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) have issued recommendations on how to integrate climate considerations into risk management strategies and practices.

However, risks such as pandemics and climate change do not occur in isolation but can also compound, as has already been seen in several countries. The compounding of risk, which is currently poorly understood, increases the complexity of risk assessment and risk management, and it has implications for socio-economic development, as well as for public debt sustainability.

The organizers of CREDIT 2021 encourage submissions on a range of topics of relevance to this year’s theme including: finance and COVID-19; finance and climate risks; finance and compound COVID-19 and climate risks. In particular, submissions are welcome in the following areas:

The final program will include both submitted and invited papers. Acceptances received so far from invited speakers include Vittoria Colizza (INSERM, France), Robert Engle (Stern Business School, New York University) and Roberto Rigobon (MIT Sloan School of Management) who will deliver keynotes, respectively on finance and on epidemics. The Conference will also feature panel discussions on researchers', practitioners' and policy makers’ views of the major issues at stake.

Those wishing to present a paper at the Conference should submit by May 31, 2021 to the address given below (preferably in electronic format). Please indicate to whom correspondence should be addressed. Decisions regarding acceptance will be made by June 30, 2021. The final version of accepted papers must be received by August 31, 2021.