Timothy Sinclair Best Paper Award 2024 for Philipp Golka

Philipp Golka was presented with the Timothy Sinclair Best Paper Award for 2024 at the annual convention of the International Studies Association in March 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. He received the award for his paper “Epistemic Gerrymandering: ESG, Impact Investing, and the Financial Governance of Sustainability,” which was published in Review of International Political Economy. In his award-winning study, Golka analyzes the financial sector’s different approaches to sustainability governance, in particular investments based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria and impact investing. While ESG investments rely on standardized indices and data providers, impact investors pursue individual strategies for unlisted assets. Golka coined the innovative term “epistemic gerrymandering” to describe how impact investors tailor “impact” to their financial portfolios. Philipp Golka has been a senior researcher in the Economic Sociology Research Area at the MPIfG since 2023. His research interests include financial markets, private wealth and inequality, political economy, and economic sociology.