Thom Wetzer

Thom Wetzer is Associate Professor of Law and Finance at the University of Oxford and the Founding Director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. At Oxford, Thom is also a Fellow of Linacre College, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, a member of the Leadership Team at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Co-Lead (Law) at Oxford Net Zero, Lead Researcher at the Oxford Martin Initiative for a Net Zero Recovery, and a member of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance.

Thom’s research examines how law and finance can generate value and advance the public good, focusing on how we can build more resilient financial systems, improve the governance of corporations, and tackle the climate crisis. His work combines traditional legal scholarship with financial, scientific, and empirical analysis, and has been published or is forthcoming in Nature, Science, Nature Climate Change [1] [2], The Columbia Business Law Review, The Journal of Corporation Law, and the Journal of Corporate Law Studies. His research has featured in media around the world, including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, the BBC, CNN, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. Thom actively collaborates with and advises governments, central banks, corporations, NGOs, and international institutions – including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme, and law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. He is also a Director at the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative. He has taught at various universities around the world, including at Yale and Stanford.

Before joining the Faculty, Thom worked towards a DPhil (as a Clarendon Scholar) and an MSc in Law and Finance at the University of Oxford, and received both a BA(Hons) in Law and Economics and an LLB in Dutch Law from Utrecht University. He was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School, Yale University, and Berkeley Law School, and worked at the European Commission and Goldman Sachs. In 2014, Thom was recognised as a ‘Global Shaper’ by the World Economic Forum.

Research programmes

• Business Law Research Group
• Computers and Law Research Group
• Law and Finance
• Oxford Business Law Blog

Research Interests

• Law and Finance
• Financial Regulation
• Corporate Governance
• Financial Contagion and Systemic Risk
• Climate Risk
• Law, Finance, and Sustainability

Publications

Recent additions

• J. Doyne Farmer, Alissa M Kleinnijenhuis, Til Schuermann and T Wetzer (eds), Handbook on Financial Stress Testing (CUP 2022)
• Rupert Stuart-Smith, Aisha Saad, Friederike Otto and T Wetzer, Attribution Science and Litigation: Facilitating Effective Legal Arguments and Strategies to Manage Climate Change Damages (Oxford Sustainable Law Programme Report 2021)
• Sam Fankhauser, Stephen M. Smith, Myles Allen and T Wetzer and others, 'The meaning of net zero and how to get it right' (2021) Nature Climate Change

Journal Article (10)

• R Stuart-Smith, F Otto, K Van Zwieten and T Wetzer, 'Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation' (2021) Nature Climate Change
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• Garbrand Wiersema, Alissa M. Kleinnijenhuis, Esti Kemp and T Wetzer, 'Higher-Order Exposures' (2021) Working Paper
• John Armour, Luca Enriques and T Wetzer, 'Mandatory Corporate Climate Disclosures: Now, but How?' (2021) Columbia Business Law Review (forthcoming)
• Arjuna Dibley, T Wetzer and Cameron Hepburn, 'National COVID debts: climate change imperils countries’ ability to repay' (2021) Vol 592 Nature
• Sam Fankhauser, Stephen M. Smith, Myles Allen and T Wetzer and others, 'The meaning of net zero and how to get it right' (2021) Nature Climate Change
• J. Doyne Farmer, Alissa M. Kleinnijenhuis, Paul Nahai-Williamson and T Wetzer, 'Foundations of System-Wide Financial Stress Testing with Heterogeneous Institutions' (2020) Bank of England Working Paper No. 861
• Garbrand Wiersema, Alissa M. Kleinnijenhuis, T Wetzer and J. Doyne Farmer, 'Scenario-Free Analysis of Financial Systems with Interacting Contagion Channels' (2020) INET Oxford Working Paper No. 2019-10 (forthcoming)
• T Wetzer, 'In Two Minds: The Governance of Ring-Fenced Banks' (2019) 19 Journal of Corporate Law Studies
• Luca Enriques, Alessandro Romano and T Wetzer, 'Network-Sensitive Financial Regulation' (2019) The Journal of Corporation Law (forthcoming)
• J. Doyne Farmer, Cameron Hepburn, Matthew C. Ives and T Wetzer and others, 'Sensitive Intervention Points in the Post-Carbon Transition' (2019) 364 Science