Department of Economics & Centre for Sustainable Finance

Professor Ulrich Volz

Key information

Roles
Department of Economics Professor of Economics Centre for Sustainable Finance Centre Director China Institute Academic Staff Japan Research Centre Academic Staff Centre of South East Asian Studies Academic Staff London Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Science Steering Committee Member
Qualifications
MSc, PhD (FU Berlin)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
P285
Email address
uv1@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
+44(0) 207 898 4721

Biography

Ulrich Volz is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS, University of London. 

He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Leipzig. Ulrich is Research Fellow in the Climate Change and Environment programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a member of the CEPR’s Sustainable Finance Research and Policy Network.

At SOAS, he previously served as Head of the Department of Economics and Member of the University’s Executive Board. Ulrich is academic director of the University Network for Strengthening Macrofinancial Resilience to Climate and Environmental Change, a co-chair of the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery initiative, co-chair of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment, and co-chair of the T20 Brazil Task Force on Reforming the International Financial Architecture. Ulrich was appointed by the Brazilian G20 Presidency to the Group of Experts of the G20 Taskforce on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA). He also serves on the Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee of the German Federal Government, the Economic Advisory Network of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the advisory panel of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the International Advisory Committee for the Climate/SDGs Debt Swap Mechanism of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA), and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s Research Advisory Council for Inclusive Green Finance.

Ulrich was Banque de France Chair at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and taught at Peking University, Kobe University, Hertie School of Governance, Freie Universität Berlin, Central University of Finance and Economics, and the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO). He spent stints working at the European Central Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, University of Birmingham, Aoyama Gakuin University, ECB, Bank Indonesia, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Asian Development Bank Institute, where he previously served on the Advisory Council.

Ulrich was part of the UN Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, a member of the NGFS-INSPIRE Study Group on Biodiversity and Financial Stability, and a member of the World Bank’s Green Recovery Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Working Group. He has acted as an advisor to several governments, central banks, international organisations and development agencies on matters of macroeconomic policy, climate risk and sustainable finance, and financial sector development.

Ulrich obtained a doctorate in economics from Freie Universität Berlin and was a Fox International Fellow and Max Kade Scholar at Yale University.

Research interests

  • International Finance
  • Open Economy Macroeconomics
  • Financial Market Development and Stability
  • Development and Transition Economics
  • Global Economic Governance
  • East Asian Financial Markets

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Damon Aitken Macroeconomic Policy and Green Industrialisation.
Alexander Dryden Sovereign Default Event and Capital Market Re-access
Yamika Ketu Borrowed from Nature: the Macroeconomic impacts of biodiversity loss on sovereign debt in South Asia.
Yu Sun The green transition and its impact on financial inclusion – designing a just transition.
Florian Wengel Assessing climate-related financial risks in the Chinese economy.

Publications

Research