To be announced

We thank the Program Committee for their valuable service to the conference.

• External Members
  Simona Abis (Columbia University)
  Bruno Biais (Toulouse School of Economics)
  Elizabeth Blankespoor (University of Washington)
  Bruce Carlin (University of California at Los Angeles)
  Jonathan Chiu (Bank of Canada)
  Lauren Cohen (Harvard University)
  Will Cong (Cornell University)
  Zhi Da (University of Notre Dame)
  Joseph Engelberg (University of California at San Diego)
  Maryam Farboodi (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
  Kay Giesecke (Stanford University)
  Vincent Glode (University of Pennsylvania)
  John Griffin (University of Texas at Austin)
  Campbell Harvey (Duke University)
  Zhiguo He (University of Chicago)
  Gerard Hoberg (University of Southern California)
  John Jiang (Michigan State University)
  Bryan Kelly (Yale University)
  Thorsten Koeppl (Queen’s University)
  Shimon Kogan (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and IDC Herzliya)
  David Larcker (Stanford University)
  Josh Lee (Brigham Young University)
  Andrew Leone (Northwestern University)
  Christian Leuz (University of Chicago)
  Kai Li (University of British Columbia)
  Tim Loughran (University of Notre Dame)
  Gustavo Manso (University of California at Berkeley)
  Narayan Naik (London Business School)
  Maureen O’Hara (Cornell University)
  Christine Parlour (University of California at Berkeley)
  Christopher Parsons (University of Washington)
  Kelly Shue (Yale University)
  Lorien Stice-Lawrence (University of Southern California)
  Ilya Strebulaev (Stanford University)
  Laura Veldkamp (Columbia University)
  Neng Wang (Columbia University)
  Andrew Wu (University of Michigan)
  Joanna Wu (University of Rochester)
  Mao Ye (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)
  David Yermack (New York University)
  Xiaoyan Zhang (Tsinghua University)
  Guofu Zhou (Washington University at St. Louis)
  Haoxiang Zhu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
• Internal Members at GSU
  Vikas Agarwal
  Rasha Ashraf
  Hadiye Aslan
  Sean Cao
  Mark Chen
  Lixin Huang
  Dalida Kadyrzhanova
  Omesh Kini
  Scott Murray
  Chip Ryan
  Zhen Shi
  Ajay Subramanian
  Yusen Xia
  Baozhong Yang
  Vincent Yao

Keynote Speaker: Robert Townsend

Robert M. Townsend is a theorist, macroeconomist, and development economist who analyzes the role and impact of economic organization and financial systems through applied general equilibrium models, contract theory and the use of micro data.  The Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT,(link is external) he is known for his seminal work on costly state verification, the revelation principle, optimal multi-period contracts, decentralization of economies with private information, models of money with spatially separated agents, forecasting the forecasts of others, and insurance and credit in developing countries. Townsend is also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics(link is external) at the University of Chicago and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics.(link is external)

He is the author of Financial Structure and Economic Organization (1990), The Medieval Village Economy (1993), Households as Corporate Firms (2010) with Krislert Samphantharak, Financial Systems in Developing Economies(2011), Chronicles from the Field (2013) with Sombat Sakuntasathien and Rob Jordan, and numerous professional articles in leading journals.

Townsend began his career as a theorist working on general equilibrium models, contract theory, andmechanism design. His earliest book, Financial Structure and Economic Organization (Basil Blackwell, 1990), is a collection of works related to his initial interest in neoclassical models that characterize how groups of economic agents organize themselves. The key features in the described environments of these models include separation in space and uncertainty, which helped shape financial structure and economic organization in early European history. An in-depth focus on the first of these historical episodes led Townsend to write The Medieval Village Economy: A Study of the Pareto Mapping in General Equilibrium Models (Princeton University Press, 1993). The environment of the medieval village resembles those of relatively simple models with risk and moral hazard, and its institutions display distinctive features such as the fragmented landholding patterns of English fields. Later, Townsend turned to contemporary underdeveloped economies, and his paper Risk and Insurance in Village India (Econometrica, 1994) was awarded the Frisch Medal, in 1998. The use of both theory and data to evaluate the effectiveness of local, village-level markets and institutions made the paper particularly notable.

After using the ICRISAT panel data in his work in India, Townsend took what he saw as a logical next step: field research and in-person interviews. As described in “Financial Systems of Northern Thai Villages” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1995), variation across villages – even among those close to one another – became increasingly apparent, as did the links of these villages to the outside economy. Townsend placed the study of the family, kinship groups, and networks as risk-sharing syndicates in this context, and received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in 1997 to launch a large-scale survey project in Thailand now known as the Townsend Thai Project.(link is external) The Ford Foundation provided Townsend with funding for a follow-up study to examine the effects of the Asian financial crisis that originated in Thailand. This study assessed the microeconomic impact of a large macroeconomic shock, in comparison with other ongoing and typical spatial-temporal stochastic processes. Continued funding from the NICHD and the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) in Bangkok, as well as funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research on micro and macro models, has allowed these surveys to continue and to incorporate economic theory, a hallmark of Townsend’s unique approach.

With this support, the Townsend Thai surveys are now one of the longest running panel datasets in a developing country. Currently, the Townsend Thai Data(link is external) consists of over 15 years of annual panel data for 1,225 households in 64 villages and separately, 180 months of in-depth monthly data for 700 households in 16 villages. In total, close to 3,500 households are  now surveyed each year in rural and urban areas across Thailand. Townsend’s Households as Corporate Firms (Econometric Society Monograph, 2009) features  measurement coming from this rich data, the creation of income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for household businesses, which make up a large part of developing economies such as Thailand, in both rich and poor regions.

Townsend’s work with Thai collaborators at the Thai Family Research Project (TFRP) has expanded to other provinces, so as to cover all regions of Thailand, and to include towns and cities. The survey also includes local institutions, headmen, joint liability groups, and environmental data. A comprehensive archive of secondary data, organized by the University of Chicago – UTCC Research Center, and an automated search function are available for public use. Overall, the Townsend Thai Data and other secondary data such as those of Thailand’s National Statistics Office (NSO) allow researchers to look at detailed economic activity in a variety of settings, to gauge the realism of assumed micro underpinnings, and to test models in a way that has not been possible before. This research is yielding new insights to what financial regimes best describe the data, the role of family and informal networks as shadow banking, an evaluation of village funds and the universal health care program with extensive before and after data, the study of villages as small open economies and the role of internal trade and capital flows in the process of development, and the role of small and larger firms. Modified and new theories are emerging.

Townsend’s current work is comprised of multiple projects that span a number of countries. One main project builds on micro underpinnings of economic growth to gain an understanding of Thailand’s entire economy. His book, Financial Systems in Developing Economies: Growth, Inequality and Policy Evaluation in Thailand (Oxford University Press, 2010), is a summary of much of his work, including macro models of growth, industrialization, and financial deepening in economies in transition. Townsend and his colleagues are extending this approach to other countries, including Brazil, Mexico, and Spain.

Townsend is now working in partnership with Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) to help enhance the national flow of funds accounting. When completed, these data will capture the role of households and firms, account for flows between different sectors and regions, and generate richer research combining micro and macro data. Another project, in India, studies the risk of monsoons, which varies widely across villages and regions, and it examines whether an economy-wide rainfall insurance initiative is helpful. Finally, a project in Kenya studies electronic money via models of money with spatially separated agents.

In 2011, Townsend was awarded the Jean-Jacques Laffont Prize, which is bestowed by The Institute of Industrial Economics (IDEI) and the city of Toulouse, Francein honor of the late economist Jean-Jacques Laffont. In 2012, Townsend became the first person to win the Frisch Medal twice. He shared the honor with fellow economist and former student Joseph Kaboski of the University of Notre Dame for their paper, A Structural Evaluation of a Large-Scale, Quasi-Experimental Microfinance Initiative (Econometrica, 2011). The selection committee said the paper was noteworthy for its “combination of rigorous theory and careful econometrics to produce important insights into a major development policy.” Townsend also presented the 2010 Gorman Lecture in Economics at the University College London on the topic of the evaluation of financial systems in developing countries.

From a theoretical perspective, Townsend is currently working on techniques for the evaluation of financial services and other programs which include general equilibrium effects and comparison with reduced-from instrumented variation and natural experiments; the optimal design of financial institutions and markets when adverse selection, collateral constraints, and moral hazard with retrade create externalities; and the industrial organization of financial markets in developing countries. He focuses on the next generation of micro-founded macro models that incorporate space and the environment, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), biophysical and climate models, and enhanced computational methods. From a practical perspective, Townsend is working closely with organizations on the ground in Chile, Brazil, Thailand, and other countries to form policy initiatives that incorporate assessment using theory and measurement from surveys.

Townsend leads several grants related to his research interests. He is Principal Investigator and Faculty Director of the Consortium on Financial Systems and Poverty at the University of Chicago, a program supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Consortium brings together scholars from various subfields to better understand and improve financial systems in the developing world. It pools expertise in the fields of development, macroeconomics, finance, and international economics. The Consortium supports four workshops that study payments systems, flow of fund accounts, macro models with realistic financial sectors, and the role of industrial organization in development in order to gain a broader understanding of financial systems and their role in poverty alleviation. Townsend also serves as Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Enterprise Initiative, which explores entrepreneurship and wealth creation through the lens of Applied General Equilibrium Enterprise Economics. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, this research initiative studies how households and firms overcome obstacles in various settings and their impact on the larger economy.

Call for Papers
In recent years, FinTech, or financial technology, has been rapidly developing and reshaping business practices and the financial services industry. This has generated significant interest in advancing academic research in this important area. Following the success of the inaugural conference in 2019, the Department of Finance, the Center for Economic Analysis of Risk (CEAR), and the Institute for Insight at Georgia State University, together with the Review of Financial Studies will jointly host a second annual conference on Current Research in FinTech. The conference will be held on February 28-29, 2020 at the Buckhead Center of Georgia State University in Atlanta.

We invite submission of theoretical and empirical papers on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Big data and textual analytics in finance
• Machine learning in financial economics
• Alternative lending technologies/models in fintech
• Disruption by FinTech on traditional financial services and implications for the digital economy
• Blockchain technology, smart contracts, and digital currencies
• Crowdfunding, ICOs, and other financing innovations
• Regulatory issues and challenges in FinTech

The submission deadline is November 1, 2020. Paper selection will be finalized by January 10, 2020. Co-sponsorship with the Review of Financial Studies offers authors a dual submission option. The authors may choose to submit to the conference program only, or choose to submit to both the conference and the Review of Financial Studies.

Review of Financial Studies Dual Submission Option

Submissions to the conference can also be submitted to the Review of Financial Studies under its dual review system, with the same submission deadline of November 1, 2019. Authors must indicate on the conference submission website whether they are interested to have their paper considered under this dual review option with the RFS that works as follows:

• There is no charge for submissions under this program.
• Dual submissions will be reviewed by the conference program committee and will be made available for consideration by the sponsoring RFS
• Papers submitted for dual consideration must not be under review at another journal or the RFS, including as a dual-submission at another journal, nor can they be considered for dual submission if previously rejected by the RFS.
• At the discretion of the conference’s sponsoring editor of the RFS, dual submissions will be sent out for a formal referee report. If such a report is sought, then the paper’s author(s) will receive a copy of the RFS reviewer’s report.
• If the sponsoring editors decide to select the paper, authors have time until after the conference to submit their paper to the RFS.
• Papers rejected at any stage of the dual review process are not considered to have been “rejected” at the RFS. This also applies to articles sent out for formal review. Thus authors are permitted to submit a future version of their paper (unchanged, if they wish) to the RFS without prejudice.
• A paper that is being considered under the dual submission option by the conference and the RFS may not be submitted to another journal (or the RFS) until the authors have been notified.

For more details about the dual submission policy of the RFS please see http://sfs.org/dualsubmissionpolicy/.

Address

Georgia State University Buckhead Center
Tower Place 200, 3348 Peachtree Rd. NE
Atlanta, GA 30326

GPS Users

The street address of 3348 Peachtree Road is not the best landmark to use for directions. If you are using Google maps or a GPS unit, input Tower Place Drive NE 30326 (or the intersection of Tower Place Drive and Lenox Road).

Gates on Tower Place Drive

Gates on Tower Place Drive block access to our building from Piedmont between 7:00 – 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. During these times, it is imperative that you enter from the Lenox Road intersection on Tower Place Drive.

The most up to date directions can be found on the Campus Locations website

MARTA Subway:

Take the North Springs line (Red Line) to the Buckhead N7 Station; follow the first exit out of the station and turn right on Peachtree Road (away from Lenox Square Mall); turn right again immediately after the Capital City Plaza building (before Fresh 2 Order Restaurant); follow the sidewalk on the left – it will lead you around to the front entrance of Tower Place 200.

One-way Rail Rides cost $2.50. Tickets can be easily purchased from vending machines at all MARTA stations. This is by far the easiest method, and is on a direct line to Atlanta International Airport. Here is a map of the MARTA rail system.

Driving:

From SOUTH of Atlanta: Follow I-85 North to GA 400. Exit at Lenox Road (first exit, before the toll plaza). Stay in the far left lane and turn left off the exit onto Lenox Road. At the next light, turn left onto Tower Place Drive NE. (On the Border Mexican Restaurant will be located on the left.) Remain in the left lane through both stop signs. Continue straight to the Tower Place 200 parking garage.

From NORTH of Atlanta on I-85:
Take I-85 South to the North Druid Hills exit. Turn right onto North Druid Hills Road. Go through two traffic lights. Stay in the left lane and continue straight onto E. Roxboro Road at the split. Turn left onto Peachtree Road. Turn right onto Lenox Road/Paul Coverdell Memorial Parkway. After you cross GA 400, turn left at the first light onto Tower Place Drive NE. (On the Border Mexican Restaurant will be located on the left.) Remain in the left lane through both stop signs. Continue straight to the entrance of the Tower Place 200 parking garage.

From NORTH of Atlanta on I-75:
From I-75 South, take Exit 251 for I-85 North toward Greenville. Merge onto I-85. Take Exit 87 onto GA-400 N toward Buckhead. Take the Lenox Road exit and turn left. Turn left at the first light onto Tower Place Drive NE. (On the Border Mexican Restaurant will be located on the left.) Remain in the left lane through both stop signs. Continue straight to the entrance of the Tower Place 200 parking garage.

From NORTH of Atlanta on GA-400:
Take 400 South. Follow Exit #2 GA 141 Connector to Buckhead. Make a right onto Lenox Road. At the next light, turn left onto Tower Place Drive NE. (On the Border Mexican Restaurant will be located on the left.) Remain in the left lane through both stop signs. Continue straight to the entrance of the Tower Place 200 parking garage.

From Peachtree/Piedmont Roads:
From Peachtree, turn north on Piedmont Rd. (If coming south on Peachtree, turn right on Piedmont. If coming north on Peachtree, turn left on Piedmont.) From Piedmont Road, turn onto Lenox Road. At the first light, turn right onto Tower Place Drive NE. (You will see On The Border Mexican Restaurant as a landmark.) Remain in the left lane through both stop signs. Continue straight to the entrance of the Tower Place 200 parking garage.

Parking

The Tower Place 200 parking deck is a paid deck. Validation tickets will be arranged for presenters, discussants, and registered conference participants in this garage only. We cannot validate parking for any other garages. An attendant is normally on duty until 8 pm on weekdays only. A payment machine is available after hours.

After you have parked, take the garage elevator down to the ground level – this will lead you directly into the lobby of Tower Place 200, and then take the building’s elevators to the 12^th Floor.

Unless otherwise dictated by the conference organizers, all guests are responsible for their own hotel bookings. The following hotels are near the conference venue.

• Courtyard by Marriott— preferred hotel, within a 5-minute walk — Phone: 404-869-0818
• DoubleTree by Hilton— within a 5-minute walk — Phone: 404-23-1234
• Springhill Suites— <1 mile away — Phone: 404-844-4800
• AC Hotel Buckhead (A Marriott property)— <1 mile away — Phone: 470-231-3030
• Intercontinental— <1 mile away — Phone: 404-946-9111