Summer School

Finance, Economics and Ethics

Salerno – Italy – 22 – 27 August 2010

The collapse of financial markets in the autumn of 2008 marked the end of a two-decade period of finance-driven growth. This also meant the end of mechanisms of wealth redistribution, like access to low-interest credit and high-yield investments that had been central in guaranteeing social consensus in the “Neoliberal” model that dominated the recent political history of Western democracies.

This blow to the basis of our socio-economic model has left us without alternatives and concrete ideas about future are scarce. We are all poised on the starting line, waiting for the financial world to re-launch models and methodologies that are by now obsolete.

Hereby lies the necessity to organise a summer school that will not put forward obsolete models and techniques but rather embark on a more visionary study. It will be a workshop hosting some of the greatest scholars in the world in terms of economics and ethical finance together with 30 young minds coming from all over the world and selected on the basis of their curricula. The aim of this workshop is to investigate possible guidelines for a future socio-economic model and exam in-depth the proper role of finance in these new, emerging models. Such reflections will depart from what seems to be a new emerging concept of value: ethics. In the last few decades we have witnessed the growing importance of ethics in economic processes (from critical consumption to the ethics of business, from Corporate Social Responsibility to ethical financing). Given this, is a more “ethical” economy possible, and what might the role of finance be in it?

Overview

After 2008, the legitimacy of financial markets was soundly devalued. Many have attempted to make the world of finance the scapegoat and the fundamental cause of the current financial crisis. However, in order to find useful solutions, it is necessary to recognise that financial markets are there, and that they play a central and indispensable role in the modern-day economy.

In fact, it is financial markets that the value of new networked and highly socialized productive processes are determined, in the form of intangible assets like brands or intellectual capital. Could it be that financial markets represent a rational way to valorise wealth production that tends to take place outside the context of corporate institutions and to coincide more and more within processes of everyday life (like in the case of the processes of communication among consumers that create brand reputation or in the interaction between the participants of Open Innovation systems etc)?

The expansion of the financial markets had the effect of radically extending participation in the processes of determining economic value. Before the development of the contemporary currency market, the value of currencies was determined by a handful of central bankers. Now however, tens of thousands of traders participate in this process. Is it possible to see financial markets not just as a source of speculative irrationality but also as a mechanism of possible democratisation of the economy, extending the field of deliberation within which fundamental decisions about the functioning of the economy may take place?

In the last decade we have witnessed considerable development in ethical finance. Are there tools and ways to give more importance to instances of the ethical nature of finance? How can financial tools aimed at supporting “ethical” businesses, such as social business or ONG, be used? What might the role of the new media be in this process? The summer school will launch reflections on these and many other fundamental questions.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

PUBLIC TARGETS

Due to the scientific nature of the meeting and the presence of some of the most prestigious names on the world stage of Economics and Ethical, Finance, the summer school would be appreciated by different types of people:

Undergraduates or graduates, postgraduate students
Undergraduates, graduates and students on specialisation courses PhD students and university and independent researchers.
Cost: 100,00 euro(university credits can be arranged in cooperation with student’s home institutions)

Lecturers, managers and executives of no-profit businesses
Associate and Full professors, managers and executives of no-profit organisations.
Cost: 200,00 euro

Corporate
Manager and company executives.
Cost: 2.500,00 euro

Auditors
We allow for the possibility of inviting external auditors.

WAYS TO ENROL

On-line form

Enrolment may be done online by completing the special form to be found at the following address: www.societing.org/summerschool The enrolment form must be completed in CAPITAL LETTERS, signed and delivered with all the required documents (cfr. application) in the
following ways:

1. E-mail info@societing.it
2. Fax+39 089 444566
3. Post box Casella Postale 95
84013 – Cava de’ Tirreni (SA) Amalfi Coast – Italy