Blog Archives

2024 IMF-WIFPR Conference

Winston Wei Dou presents behind a podium as a slide displays behind him.

On June 18, 2024, the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation and the International Monetary Fund co-hosted the Conference on Financial and Real Implications of Technologies, AI, and Cyber Risks at the IMF Headquarters in Washington D.C. This conference explored the influence of technological advancements, AI integration, and cyber…Read More

IMF-WIFPR Panel: New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

The New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence: Landscape, Challenges, and Outlook speaks at the IMF-WIFPR Conference.

On June 18, 2024, the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation (WIFPR) co-hosted with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the IMF-WIFPR Conference on Financial and Real Implications of Technologies, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cyber Risks. This is the second annual IMF-WIFPR conference, following up on last year’s Conference on…Read More

Gresham’s Law of Plastic

Cover of the book "Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control" by Sean H. Vanatta, featuring overlapping teal and red circles with illustrative elements.

By Sean Vanatta In a 1991 article in the American Economic Review, Lawrence Ausubel posed a question: Why had competition failed in the credit card market? Credit card interest rates had surged in the early 1980s following Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s dramatic bit to purge inflation, but as market interest…Read More

Rethinking Optimal Deposit Insurance

On Friday, April 19, the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation (WIFPR) co-hosted a conference with Yale’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy on “Rethinking Optimal Deposit Insurance.” The conference was organized by Itay Goldstein, WIFPR director and Joel S. Ehrenkranz Family Professor of Finance at Wharton, and Eduardo Davila,…Read More

Research Spotlight: Will ETFs Drive Mutual Funds Extinct?

Line graph showing the AuM weighted average relative mispricing in percentage for all U.S. index ETFs and mutual funds from 2000 to 2023.

The WIFPR Blog publishes posts spotlighting research by members of the Wharton community. In this post, Anna Helmke, PhD candidate in Finance, discusses her work on ETFs and mutual funds. By Anna Helmke The rise of passive investing has been nothing short of revolutionary. At the heart of this phenomenon…Read More

Research Spotlight: Instant Payment Systems and Competition for Deposits

The WIFPR Blog publishes posts spotlighting research by members of the Wharton community. In this post, Sergey Sarkisyan, PhD candidate in Finance, discusses his work on instant payments and the competition for deposits. By Sergey Sarkisyan The banking industry is highly concentrated. Despite the fact that there are 4,200 banks…Read More

Basel III Endgame was inevitable for large banks, but what about non-banks and smaller banks?

Note: this post is part of our series on Basel III Endgame, which features contributions from participants at our Basel III Endgame roundtable. You can find other posts in the series here. By Viral V Acharya “Basel III Endgame” is a set of rules proposed by the US regulatory authorities,…Read More

Crypto, Digital Currency, and Interoperability Roundtable

September 18, 2023 This post summarizes key takeaways from a September roundtable on digital currencies. Chair Sarah Hammer, Executive Director at the Wharton School and Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School Speakers Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore Tara Rice, Head of Secretariat, Committee…Read More

A Few Thoughts on Basel III Endgame

Note: this post is part of our series on Basel III Endgame, which features contributions from participants at our Basel III Endgame roundtable. You can find other posts in the series here. By David Zaring On November 7, 2023, the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation (WIFPR) convened a…Read More

Rethinking Banking Regulation and the Basel III Endgame

Note: this post is part of our series on Basel III Endgame, which features contributions from participants at our Basel III Endgame roundtable. You can find other posts in the series here. By Tomasz Piskorski Summary The 2023 bank failures underscore the fundamental issue of banking vulnerability rooted in the…Read More