April 2026

Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier in Contemporary Conflicts: Pathways, Evidence, and Legal-Policy Responses

By Hope Tendo This paper examines climate change as a “threat multiplier” in contemporary conflicts by analysing its causal pathways, empirical support, and the legal-policy responses required to mitigate associated security risks. It argues that climate change rarely operates as a direct driver of violence but instead intensifies existing socio-economic, political, and institutional vulnerabilities. The study evaluates scholarly and policy literature demonstrating that climatic stress interacts with fragile governance, contested land and resource tenure, livelihood insecurity, migration pressures, and state...

Large Language Models in Financial Decision-Making: A Methodological Framework for Evaluating AI Trading Strategies

By Theo Nicolas Sitjar Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new possibilities for financial decision-making, but evaluating their effectiveness in trading requires systematic approaches. This paper describes a practical framework for assessing LLM performance in stock market scenarios. Our method follows a 5-step process: data preparation, prompt engineering, LLM inference, backtesting, and statistical analysis. We include memory mechanisms and standard risk metrics to evaluate trading strategies comprehensively. Through testing against fifteen traditional quantitative baseline strategies, we examine both the potential benefits...

Gig Workers And Labour Law In India: Analysing The Legal Vacuum Under The Code On Social Security 2020

By Anshita Jain The rise of the gig economy in India has transformed traditional employment structures while exposing significant gaps in labour law protections. This paper analyses the legal status of gig and platform workers under the Code on Social Security, 2020, highlighting the challenges of worker classification and limited social security coverage. It argues that despite formal recognition, the absence of enforceable rights and clear accountability mechanisms leaves gig workers vulnerable. The paper concludes by suggesting the need for...

March 2026

XXI Banorte. Reporte de Riesgos y Oportunidades Climáticas 2025

Por XXI Banorte  Este Reporte detalla los resultados del análisis de riesgos y oportunidades en materia de Cambio Climático de Afore XXI Banorte, incluyendo información sobre la gobernanza, la estrategia sobre las operaciones de la enfidad Administradora y el portafolio inversión, los avances en la implementación de nuestra estrategia climática y la senda de descarbonización bajo objetivos basados en ciencia, establecidos para alcanzar las emisiones cero, asi como un desglose de los resultados de desempeño alcanzados en el ejercicio fiscal...

Employee Satisfaction and Pension Shortfall Risk

By Annita Florou, Meng Li, Peter F. Pope & Nipat Puangjampa Defined benefit (DB) pension plans are important to employee welfare. However, they carry risk as they are subject to minimum funding requirements. We examine the effect of a relaxation in pension funding rules on employee satisfaction by exploiting the adoption of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). We find that employees of DB firms are less satisfied with their firms and their senior managers, after...

Universal Owner and Impact of Its Engagement Program: An Analysis of Engagement Records of Japan’s GPIF

By Masahiro Shibata & Kazunori Suzuki This study examines the impact of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) engagement program, leveraging a proprietary dataset of 26,792 engagements across 21 externally managed funds from fiscal years 2017 to 2022. As one of the largest universal owners globally, GPIF plays a pivotal role in influencing corporate behavior through structured engagements aimed at improving corporate governance, environmental sustainability, and financial performance. Despite growing global interest in engagement-driven stewardship, empirical evidence on its effectiveness...

Non-contributory Pension Programs and Intra-household Inequality

By José L. Casco Non-contributory pension schemes are increasingly prevalent as countries seek to combat poverty, yet their role in shaping inequality remains underexplored. This paper studies how such programs alter intra-household inequality using data from Mexican household income and expenditure surveys. The analysis first examines a local pension program in Mexico City, embedding an age-based quasi-experimental design to identify beneficiaries within a structural model of extended households. Results show that the program shifted resources from men to women and...

UK. Pensions and savings hammered as threat of ‘full-scale economic war’ sends shares tumbling

More than £50billion was wiped off the value of the London stock market today – taking losses since the start of the war on Iran to £225billion. On a brutal day for savers with money tied up in shares through their pensions, ISAs and other investments, the FTSE 100 index tumbled more than 200 points or 2 per cent in early trading. The wider FTSE All-share – which includes smaller companies on the London stock market as well as the 100 blue chips...

Risks, returns and realism: Mapping the future of pension investment

By Nicolas Firzli and Nick Sherry  Former Australian pensions minister Nick Sherry and World Pensions Forum director M Nicolas J Firzli explain their new model for visualising the future of asset allocation as interest in private markets and productive finance increases. We are living in the Age of Geo-Economics – defined by the second Trump presidency, the accelerating Sino-American technological rivalry, and the weaponisation of trade, finance and central banking – shaping the Fifth Industrial Revolution – bringing us artificial intelligence, advanced...

Guerra contra Irán: escenarios para los inversores

Por Arun Sai La guerra en Irán y el riesgo de que pueda derivar en un conflicto regional de mayor alcance han agitado los mercados financieros mundiales. Los precios del petróleo y del gas en Europa se han disparado, mientras que los mercados de renta variable han experimentado fuertes caídas. Lo que más se teme es que el mundo pueda estar a punto de experimentar una subida de los precios de la energía tan abrupta como la que se produjo tras...