AfriMed Finance Society

Best Papers

AFS 2025 (AFS)

Propagation of ESG-Linked Compensation through Boardroom Connections

Co-authors: Oksana Pryshchepa, Cong Wang, Qingwei Wang

Izidin and his co-authors examine how ESG-linked compensation policies diffuse across firms through board interlocks and the role of common directors in shaping this process. Using data on U.S. listed firms from 2002 to 2020, they find that a firm is 2.7% more likely to adopt an ESG-pay policy when its board-connected peers have already implemented one. This peer effect is robust across alternative specifications and persists when using an instrumental variable approach based on peers of peers’ ESG contracting. The effect is stronger when interlocking directors hold greater influence—such as serving as CEO in the focal firm, sitting on compensation committees, or being independent directors in peer firms. Moreover, diffusion is amplified in firms with higher board quality, stronger ESG orientation, greater information asymmetry, and more competitive market environments.

AFS 2025 (RIBAF)

Ben Charoenwong

Partisan Supply Chains: The Impact of Political Ideology on Global Sourcing

Co-authors: Jie Peng and Jing Wu

Charoenwong and colleagues examine how political ideology influences firms’ global sourcing strategies. Exploiting a quasi-experimental setting around foreign elections, they find that greater ideological distance between U.S. firms and foreign governments leads to reduced imports from those countries. Firms with high R&D intensity are especially sensitive to these ideological shifts, whereas firms with long-established supply chains are less affected. The effect of political ideological distance is stronger in countries with robust institutions, where ideologically divergent regulations are more likely to be enacted and enforced. Ex post, firms that curtail sourcing from ideologically distant countries mitigate reputational risks associated with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns.

AFS 2025 (Outstanding Doctoral Research Paper Award)

Zheyu Qi

Lending in the Age of Cyber Threats: How Do Lenders Price Loans?

Zheyu examines how lenders price data breach risks in the syndicated loan market and finds that banks increase loan spreads following breaches, especially for credit lines. The effect is mitigated by strong borrower–lender relationships and proactive cybersecurity management, supporting the Bank Specialness Hypothesis and extending relationship lending research to cybersecurity risk.

AFS 2024 (AFS)

Cayman Seagraves

Now you see me: Broadband internet, social media, and corporate social responsibility

Co-authors: Todd Gormley, Hosein Maleki

Research by Seagraves and his colleagues explores the influence of mobile broadband internet and social media on companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies. Utilizing the expansion of 3G networks in U.S. counties as a natural experiment, they found that the availability of 3G around a firm’s headquarters is associated with a significant improvement in their CSR ratings. Reputation concerns, driven by the possibility of online activism and social media backlash of corporate policies, are a major driver of the results, they discovered.

AFS 2024 (RIBAF)

Sushil Sainani

Turning adversity into action: Strengthening board sustainability oversight in response to ESG incidents

Co-authors: Chris Florackis, Elica Krasteva

Research by Sushil and his colleagues examines how companies respond to negative publicity in the media regarding their en- vironmental, social and governance (ESG) incidents by introducing governance measures tied to sustainability oversight and accountability. They find that firms are more likely to introduce sus- tainability committees, compensation linked to sustainability, and transparency in sustainability reporting, underscoring boards’ active role in addressing ESG risks following incidents. Notably, their findings demonstrate that these responses are particularly pronounced for E-incidents (emis- sions and resource use) and S-incidents (workplace and community) incidents but are not observed in the case of G-incidents.

AFS 2023

R. Jared DeLisle

Does environmental and social performance affect pricing efficiency? Evidence from earnings conference call tones

Co-authors: Andrew Grant, Ruiqi Mao

Research by DeLisle and his colleagues examines how environmental and social (ES) performance, proxied by related incidents, affect the managerial and analyst tones in quarterly earnings conference calls and its incremental effect on post-earnings call returns. They documented that firms experiencing poor ES performance in the quarter prior to the earnings call exhibit more negative management tone after controlling for quarterly financial performance metrics. Tone difference in conference calls between managers and analysts predicts negative abnormal returns in the three-day window around the call.

AFS 2026 - CALL FOR PAPERS

UNIVERSITY OF CATANIA – ITALY

JULY 16 - 18, 2026

FIRMS AT CROSSROADS:
GOVERNANCE, SUSTAINABILITY, AI, AND ENERGY TRANSITION

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

HEITOR ALMEIDA

PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AND STANLEY C. AND JOAN J. GOLDER DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN CORPORATE FINANCE

The AfriMed Finance Association (AFS) invites high-quality research submissions for its sixth Annual Conference (AFS 2026). We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions in finance and related business disciplines. Submissions exploring contemporary challenges—including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, political polarization, geopolitical risk, lobbying, ESG, and corporate disclosure materiality—are especially encouraged. Other topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Financial crises, bubbles, and stakeholder-centric risks
Taxation, legal, regulatory, and ethical issues in finance
Climate-related financial risks, ESG integration, and sustainability
Digital finance, FinTech innovation, stablecoin adoption, fungibility, and central bank digital currencies
IPOs, corporate governance, and executive compensation
Real estate, infrastructure finance, and global property markets
Asset allocation, portfolio management, and institutional investors
Sovereign wealth funds, banking, and financial intermediation
Derivatives, risk management, and financial engineering

Conference Submissions

Papers should be submitted through the conference submission portal: www.afrimedfinance.com. The submission deadline is March 15, 2026. Authors will be notified by April 21, 2026 regarding acceptance for presentation and discussion at the conference. For submission guidelines and additional information, please visit our website.

Conference Highlights

In addition to parallel sessions and the keynote address, the conference will feature a panel titled “Inside the Publication Process: Editors’ Insights.” This panel aims to move beyond general editorial advice by providing a substantive discussion of real-world publication experiences. Editors from leading journals will share perspectives on decision-making, challenges, and lessons learned from recently published papers, offering participants a deeper understanding of how high-quality research evolves into published work.

AFS 2026

About AFS

Founding Directors

Najah Attig

Omrane Guedhami

Sadok El Ghoul

Paul Brockman

Mohamed Ayadi

Sattar A. Mansi

Upcoming & Past Meetings

AFS 2026

AFS 2025

AFS 2024

AFS 2023

AFS 2022

Explore Sicily (Italy)

Organizing Committee

Sebastiano Mazzù

Omrane Guedhami

Simona Galletta

Najah Attig

Paul Brockman

Luca Piras

Maria Rosaria Pappalardo

Mohamed Ayadi

Sadok El Ghoul

Lorenzo Fichera

Scientific Committee

William L. Megginson

Weiming (Elaine) ZHANG

Randall Morck

April Knill

Olubunmi Faleye

Andrew Karolyi

Jerry Parwada

Lillian Ng

Jie Cao

Lemma Senbet

Arman Eshraghi

Oumar Sy

Alvaro G. Taboada

Kee-Hong Bae

Kodjovi Assoe

Mohamed Ayadi

Mingsheng Li

Omrane Guedhami

Tesfaye Taddese Lemma

Victor Song

John Wald

Narjess Boubakri

Luca Piras

Najah Attig

Jing Shi

Oskar Kowalewski

Tanseli Savaser

Sadok El Ghoul

Walid Ben Omrane

Redouane Elkamhi

Rose Liao

Lamia Chourou

Sebastiano Mazzù

Oumaima Lahmar

Yukihiro Yasuda

Wolfgang Drobetz

Konari Uchida

Jungwon Suh

Majid K. El Ghaib

Raluca A. Roman

Greg Hebb

Xiaolan Zheng

Michael King

Nadia Massoud

Meziane Lasfer

Cayman Seagraves

Hela Nammouri

Xinming Li

Hamdi Driss

Paul Brockman

Sattar A. Mansi

Samir Saadi