HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies

20/08/2026

📢 Thought Leadership Brief No. 112
We're proud to present Thought Leadership Brief No. 112, titled "When Disaster Strikes: How Climate Events Influence Employment Preferences" authored by Prof. Yue Zheng and Prof. Allen Huang.

🌪️ Climate disasters don't just damage infrastructure — they reshape the labour market. Analysing U.S. job postings, employment data, and employee reviews, this research finds that after a local climate disaster, vacancies at environmentally lagging firms remain open for an additional 138 days on average compared to greener peers. Workers don't just hesitate to join — existing employees leave more negative reviews citing environmental concerns and actively migrate toward greener employers, accelerating a talent exodus that hits hardest at firms with the weakest environmental records.

📖 Read the full brief: http://iems.ust.hk/tlb112

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets

21/07/2026

📢 Thought Leadership Brief No. 111
We're thirlled to share Thought Leadership Brief No. 111, titled "Scaling Home- and Community-Based Services for Older People Through PPPs in China" authored by Zilin Li and Stuart Gietel-Basten.

🏠 China has set an ambitious target for 90% of older adults to age at home — but building the infrastructure is only half the battle. Studying public–private partnerships (PPPs) in Guangzhou, a pioneer city that achieved full community-level coverage of elder care facilities by end of 2024, this research reveals a critical gap: PPPs operate within a fundamentally state-led model where private providers act largely as policy implementers, institutional fragmentation limits service integration, and a mismatch between public perceptions and actual welfare arrangements suppresses demand for quality care — leaving the promised synergies of PPPs largely unrealised.

📖 Read the full brief: http://iems.ust.hk/tlb111

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets

23/06/2026

📢 Thought Leadership Brief No. 110
We're excited to share the latest Thought Leadership Brief, titled "Examining Public Opinion on Same-Sex Partnership Rights in Hong Kong," authored by Prof Stuart Gietel-Basten.

🏙️ What do Hong Kong residents actually think about equal rights for same-sex couples? Drawing on 4,551 respondents from the 2023 Hong Kong Generations and Gender Survey (HK-GGS), this research finds that nearly half (47.9%) support equal rights, while only 14% oppose them — yet a critical 38% remain neutral or undecided. Crucially, support is not uniform: Christians are over four times more likely to oppose equal rights than non-religious individuals, while women are 49% less likely to disagree than men — revealing that Hong Kong's policy debate is shaped as much by demographics as by values.

📖 Read the full brief:

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets

19/05/2026

📢 Thought Leadership Brief No. 109
We're thrilled to share Thought Leadership Brief No. 109, titled "Greenwashing Risks in the Corporate Green Bond Markets: An Expenditure-Based Measurement" authored by Prof. Keith Jin Deng Chan and Wilson Tsz Shing Wan.

🌿 The corporate green bond market has surged from USD 1 billion in 2012 to over USD 1.8 trillion in 2023 — but not all that glitters is green. Studying 112 global issuers, this research finds that high greenwashing-risk issuers have environmental expenditures 50% lower than their low-risk peers, and that institutional investors paradoxically channel more capital toward the riskiest issuers with the lowest capacity to decarbonize. When these firms are shut out of the green bond market, they migrate to green loans — quietly transferring greenwashing risk to creditor banks.

📖 Read the full brief: http://iems.ust.hk/tlb109

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets

28/04/2026

📢 Thought Leadership Brief No. 108
We're excited to share Thought Leadership Brief No. 108, titled "Radical Novelties in Critical Technologies: How do China, the US and the EU fare?" authored by Alicia García Herrero.

🔬 Forget patent counts — true technological power lies in radical novelties. By using an LLM to analyse patents filed between 2019 and 2023, this research reveals a striking global divide: the US leads in foundational AI and quantum computing, China dominates in applied AI and semiconductor manufacturing, and the EU risks becoming a mere rule-taker due to fragmentation. Most critically, China is now moving upstream into foundational research — if it achieves parity while retaining manufacturing dominance, the balance of global technological power could shift decisively in its favour.

📖 Read the full brief: http://iems.ust.hk/tlb108

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets

16/04/2026

🚀 IEMS Academic Webinar: Radical Novelties in Critical Technologies: How do China, the US and the EU fare?

Join us as Prof. Alicia García Herrero unpacks radical innovations shaping strategic power — and where China, the US, and the EU stand in this critical technology battle.

👤 Speaker: Prof. Alicia García Herrero, Chief Economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis
👤 Moderator: Prof. Masasru Yarime, Associate Professor in the Division of Public Policy, HKUST
📅 Date: 4 May 2026 | 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM HKT
💻 Format: Zoom

🔗 Register now: https://hkust.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lK5Xg-3FRV-7gc65uI33PQ

If you're interested in technology policy, geopolitics, or innovation economics, this is one not to miss. 💡

08/04/2026

🎉 New Research Report from IEMS | The S Factor Unpacked

The HKUST Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS) is proud to present a new research report by Prof. Laurence L. Delina and Leslie Anne L. Yasis.

The S Factor Unpacked: Tracking Social KPI Evolution in Five HKEX-Listed Companies examines how five major HKEX-listed companies — spanning financial services, utilities, transportation, real estate, and aviation — have disclosed their social Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) under the HKEX ESG Reporting Guide over a seven-year period from 2018 to 2024.

Key findings include:

- ✅ Employment and health & safety KPIs are reported most consistently across all sectors
- ⚠️ Supply chain transparency and labour standards remain significantly underdeveloped, particularly in aviation and utilities
- 📈 Post-pandemic, health & safety disclosures improved markedly across companies
- 🔄 A clear shift is emerging — from compliance-driven, quantitative reporting toward more narrative-based disclosures, reflecting growing ESG maturity
- 🏆 Real Estate Trust D leads in disclosure completeness, fully reporting 18 out of 23 KPIs analysed

📥 Read the full report: https://iems.ust.hk/publications/report/research-report/esg-report-laurence-l-delina

Thought Leadership on Emerging Markets