A joint conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and the Journal of Economics and Business

Conference Organizers and Journal Guest Editors:

  • Julapa Jagtiani (Managing Editor) – Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia - julapa.jagtiani@phil.frb.org
  • Robert Hunt – Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
  • Kose John – Stern School of Business, New York University
  • Ken Kopecky – Journal of Economics and Business

Agenda


Thursday, September 28


Welcome and Opening Remarks
William G. Spaniel

Senior Vice President, FRB Philadelphia - Watch the video 


Industry Keynote Speech
Robert Nichols
President and Chief Executive Officer, American Bankers Association


Topic Keynote — Fintech Lending and Roles of Alternative Information - Watch the video 

Moderator: Samuel Taussig, Head of Global Policy, Kabbage, Inc.

Tracy Basinger, Executive Vice President & Director, Financial Institution Supervision and Credit, FRB San Francisco

Spencer Robinson, Head of Strategy, Kabbage


Research — Fintech Lending and Roles of Alternative Information 

Moderator: Kose John, New York University

Paper 1: “FinTechs and the Market for Financial Analysis”
Roni Michaely, Cornell University, and Jillian Grennan, Duke University

Discussant: Itay Goldstein, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Paper 2: “Fintech Lending: Financial Inclusion, Risk Pricing, and Alternative Information”
Julapa Jagtiani, FRB Philadelphia, and Catharine Lemieux, FRB Chicago

Discussant: Christine Cumming, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

Paper 3: “Fintech, Regulatory Arbitrage, and the Rise of Shadow Banks”
Greg Buchak, University of Chicago, Gregor Matvos, University of Texas at Austin, Tomasz Piskorski, Columbia University, and Amit Seru, Stanford University

Discussant: John Sedunov, Villanova University


A Fintech Conversation with OCC Comptroller - Watch the video 
Keith A. Noreika
Acting Comptroller of the Currency, OCC

Introduced by: Julapa Jagtiani, FRB Philadelphia
Moderator: Richard Herring, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania


Research — Bitcoin, Blockchain, Digital Currency, and Machine Learning 

Moderator: Robert M. Hunt, Senior Vice President, FRB Philadelphia

Paper 1: “The Law of One Bitcoin Price?” 
Alexander Kroeger and Asani Sarkar, FRB New York

Paper 2: “Blockchain Disruption and Smart Contracts” 
Lin William Cong and Zhiguo He, University of Chicago

Paper 3: “The Price of a Digital Currency” 
Arash Aloosh, NEOMA Business School

Paper 4: “The Economics of Distributed Ledger Technology for Securities Settlement” 
Evangelos Benos, Bank of England, Rod Garratt, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Pedro Gurrola-Perez, Bank of England


Friday, September 29 - Watch the video


Research — Fintech and the New Financial Landscapes 

Moderator: Ken Kopecky, Journal of Economics and Business

Paper 1: “Competition in the Financial Advisory Market: Robo versus Traditional Advisors”
Antje Berndt, Sevin Yeltekin, and Honglin Yu, Australian National University

Paper 2: “Does FinTech Affect Household Saving Behavior?”
Gregor Becker, Goethe University

Paper 3: “Integrating the Troublemakers: A Taxonomy for Cooperation between Banks and Fintechs”
Benedict Drasch, André Schweizer, and Nils Urbach, University of Bayreuth


Topic Keynote – Fintech and the New Financial Landscapes

Moderator: Richard Neiman, Head of Regulatory and Government Affairs, LendingClub

Siddhartha Jajodia, Chief Investment Officer, LendingClub

Usman Ahmed, Head of Global Public Policy, PayPal, Inc.


A Conversation with Patrick T. Harke
Patrick T. Harker 
President and Chief Executive Officer, FRB Philadelphia

Introduced by: Richard Herring, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Moderator: Mukul Pandya, Knowledge@Wharton


Topic Keynote — Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrencies

Moderator: William W. Lang, Managing Director, Promontory Financial

William Nelson, Executive Managing Director, The Clearing House

Jim Cunha, Senior Vice President, FRB Boston


Research — Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Moderator: Robin A. Prager, Federal Reserve Board

Paper 1: “Financial Regulatory Implications of Artificial Intelligence”
Larry Wall, FRB Atlanta

Paper 2: “Market Design with Blockchain Technology”
Katya Malinova and Andreas Park, University of Toronto

Paper 3: “Between the Lines: Decipher the Firms’ Fundamentals with Artificial Intelligence”
Yanzhen Chen, Huaxia Rui, and Andrew B. Whinston, University of Texas at Austin


Research — Marketplace Lending and Crowdfunding

Moderator: Paul Calem, FRB Philadelphia

Paper 1: “Law, Trust, and the Development of Crowdfunding” 
P. Raghavendra Rau, University of Cambridge

Paper 2: “Profit Sharing: A Contracting Solution to Harness the Wisdom of the Crowd” 
Jiasun Li, George Mason University

Paper 3: “Financing Efficiency of Securities-Based Crowdfunding” 
David C. Brown, University of Arizona and Shaun William Davies, University of Colorado


Topic Keynote — Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Moderator: Christine A. Parlour, University of California, Berkeley

John Schindler, Federal Reserve Board

Gurvinder Ahluwalia, Founder of Digital Twin Labs, LLC; previously CTO Technical Solutioning and Blockchain, IBM


Closing Remarks
James D. Narron

First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, FRB Philadelphia