Emerging Markets: Navigating a Fragmented Global Economy
Emerging markets are navigating an increasingly fragmented and uncertain global environment. Public and private debt remain elevated and external financing conditions are uncertain. Wars and geopolitical tensions, trade and investment fragmentation, and the reconfiguration of global supply chains are reshaping capital flows, foreign direct investment (FDI), exchange-rate pressures, and growth opportunities. These developments may create new opportunities for some emerging markets while simultaneously amplifying vulnerabilities for others. Similar vulnerabilities, combined with weak banks, budget deficits, corruption, political constraints, and domestic and external misalignment, have preceded many past episodes of financial crises. Climate change is also imposing growing costs on emerging markets, many of which have limited fiscal space to build resilience.
To promote research on the economic challenges facing emerging and frontier markets, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Banco Central de Costa Rica, and the Fondo Latinoamericano de Reservas, will convene a conference in San José, Costa Rica on December 10–11, 2026. The program committee consists of NBER affiliates Mark Aguiar (Princeton University), Manuel Amador (University of Minnesota), and Diana Van Patten (Yale University).
Examples of topics confronting emerging markets that might be addressed include but are not limited to:
- Trade policy, geo-economic fragmentation, and the reconfiguration of global production.
- Terms of trade, energy and war-related shocks.
- The relationship between corporate debt, investment, and productivity.
- The role of capital flows, and particularly FDI, in contributing to economic growth as well as boom-bust cycles.
- Sovereign, bank, and corporate debt patterns and their role in financial crises.
- Recent changes in financial architecture and in international patterns of cross-border lending and investment.
- Inflation, exchange rates, monetary policy, and capital flows.
To be considered for inclusion on the program, papers must be uploaded by 11:59pm ET on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 via the following link:
Please feel free to share this call for papers widely with any researchers who might be working on projects that are suitable for presentation. The program committee welcomes contributions from early career scholars and from those who are not NBER affiliates.
Please do not submit papers that have been accepted for publication and will be published by December 2026, and be aware that NBER papers may not make policy recommendations or offer normative judgements on policy. Authors chosen to present papers will be notified in late September 2026. The NBER will cover hotel and economy-class conference travel for one author per paper. All other co-authors will be invited to attend at their own expense. Questions about this conference may be addressed to confer@nber.org.