School of Public Policy Assistant Professor Janelle Knox-Hayes has been awarded an Abe Fellowship for the year 2012.

Abe Fellowships are designed to encourage international multidisciplinary research on long-range global concerns in policy-relevant topics.  Knox-Hayes will use the fellowship to investigate the initiation and evolution of environmental finance in Asia, environmental finance being the mechanism of converting ecological services and resources into financial instruments that can be traded and sold to establish a market price.  She will interview market makers in organizations such as banks, brokerages, government agencies, legal firms, and exchanges.

“Environmental finance in Asia is interesting,” said Knox-Hayes, “because we do not yet understand the movement of economic and financial traditions into different varieties of capitalism or the initiation of new financial institutions designed to colonize the natural environment as a source of new financial instrumentation.”

As an Abe Fellow, Knox-Hayes will become a member of a key bilateral and global research network built around such topics.