2026 Chinese Economists Society (CES) China Annual Conference

2026 Chinese Economists Society (CES) China Annual Conference
Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China
July 3-5, 2026

The Chinese Economists Society (CES) calls for papers for the 2026 Annual Conference, to be held in Chengdu, China, July 3-5 (Friday-Sunday), 2026. The local host for the conference is the School of Finance and School of Economics at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE). The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2026 (Sunday)， and please indicate explicitly whether your paper is for online or in-person presentation in the field of “Note:” during submission.

The conference welcomes submissions in all fields of economics. The conference includes invited keynote speeches, invited speakers’ sessions and panels, and parallel sessions. Additionally, we are organizing online presentations on July 3 (Friday). The main events of the conference, including opening remarks, keynote speeches, and parallel sessions, are scheduled for July 4 (Saturday) and July 5 (Sunday).

The CES invites both members and non-members to submit individual papers and/or to propose organized sessions at the 2026 CES Annual Conference. All fields of specialization within Economics will be considered, and presentations can be virtual or in-person.

We also plan to have a few sessions for papers written in Chinese. Preferences will be given to organized sessions and to papers covering topics of particular importance to economic researchers in China.

INDIVIDUAL SUBMISSIONS

The submission process is open through March 15, 2026. The main submitter must be a member of the Chinese Economists Society, and all participants must register for the conference. To submit, please, please click Submission on the right-side menu, follow the instructions to enter the paper title, author name(s), JEL code(s), keywords, abstract of the paper, and to upload a PDF file of your paper if available. For “Paper Title”, if your paper is in English, then only report the English title. Otherwise, report only Chinese title. Please also indicate explicitly whether your paper is for online or in-person presentation in the field of “Note” 

Submissions without a complete paper will be considered, but preferences will be given to those with complete papers. The deadline for submission is March 15, 2026. We expect to send out notifications of the decision around April 15, 2026.

ORGANIZED SESSIONS

If you would like to organize one or more sessions on a specific topic and have presenters/discussants lined up, please submit your proposal to Dr. Kaiji Chen at kaiji.chen@emory.edu, Dr. Jue Ren at  jue.ren@tcu.edu, and Dr. Wendong Zhang at wendongz@cornell.edu by March 15st, 2026. Each organized session should consist of four individual papers. The proposal should contain a tentative name of the session, titles of papers along with their abstracts, as well as names of session presenters and discussants with their emails. Please note that papers in an organized session must still go through the regular paper submission process through the CES website, with the same deadline.

IMPORTANT DATES

March 15, 2026	Organized session proposal submission deadline (submit proposals to Dr. Kaiji Chen at kaiji.chen@emory.edu, Dr. Jue Ren at  jue.ren@tcu.edu, and Dr. Wendong Zhang at wendongz@cornell.edu)
March 15, 2026	Submission deadline for papers in both individual and organized sessions (submit through the conference website)
April 15, 2026	Notification of decision
April 30, 2026	Early Registration deadline
May 15, 2026	Registration deadline for papers to be included in the conference program

BEST PAPER AWARDS

We will select an outstanding paper presented at the 2026 CES Annual Conference by a junior scholar for the Gregory Chow Best Paper Award. To be eligible for consideration for this prestigious award, the corresponding author of the paper must be a junior scholar who received his/her Ph.D. within the last five years (no earlier than May 2021) and has an active CES membership. The award winner will receive a certificate and a US $1,000 prize.

We will also select two outstanding papers presented at the 2026 CES Annual Conference by graduate students for the CES Best Student Paper Award. To be eligible for consideration for this prestigious award, the corresponding author of the paper must be a graduate student who is currently enrolled in a master's or Ph.D. program and has an active CES membership. The award winner will receive a certificate and a US $500 prize.

No application for these awards is needed since all eligible papers are automatically considered as long as a complete paper (in pdf file) is included in the submission.

PUBLICATIONS

The CES will organize two special issues at China Economic Review and China Economic Journal respectively. Preferences will be given to papers presented at the CES Annual Conference and the CES North American Conference, but all submissions are welcomed. We expect the submission portals to open shortly after the North American Conference and will close sometime after the China Annual Conference.

Papers submitted for consideration of the special issues still need to go through the regular review process. Details about these publication opportunities will be provided later through CES's “Call for Submissions” announcements. We will accept submissions of papers written in Chinese, with the understanding that if the paper in Chinese is tentatively accepted, there is an additional step and approval of translation before the paper in English can be formally accepted. We hope this will encourage submissions of high-quality papers in Chinese on topics that are important to the Chinese economy.

REGISTRATIONS

All presenters and conference attendees must register for the Conference. Registration should be made online through the conference page at Conferences — The Chinese Economist Society (china-ces.org) under “Conferences”. Please note that registration fees are non-refundable. All participants must register by May 15, 2026, to be included in the final program.

You can join the CES and become a member here: Join CES (china-ces.org). Regular membership is $60 per year while student membership is $30 per year.

Registration Fee Schedule for In-Person Presentations

	Before or on April 30, 2026	After April 30, 2026
Regular CES member	US $200	US $300
Non-CES member	US $260	US $360
Student CES member	US $120	US $170
Student Non-CES member	US $150	US $200
Non Presenters	US $80	US $160

Registration Fee Schedule for Online Presentations

	Before or on April 30, 2026	After April 30, 2026
Regular CES member	US $100	US $200
Non-CES member	US $160	US $260
Student CES member	US $70	US $120
Student Non-CES member	US $100	US $150
Non Presenters	US $50	US $100

CONTACT INFORMATION

For inquiries related to the conference, please direct your questions to the appropriate contacts:

 

For academic-related matters, contact 2025-2026 CES president and board members:

• Dr. Kaiji Chen at kaiji.chen@emory.edu or

• Dr. Jue Ren at  jue.ren@tcu.edu or

• Dr. Wendong Zhang at wendongz@cornell.edu

 

For general matters and logistics,

• Dr. Qing Wang at wqing@swufe.edu.cn

• Dr. Ronghua Luo at ronghua@swufe.edu.cn or

• Dr. Hong Zou at zouhong@swufe.edu.cn