Welcome to the WIFPR Blog

Welcome to the blog of the Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation (WIFPR). This post will introduce you to WIFPR, its mission, its staff, and will explain the blog’s purpose and range.

WIFPR was founded by Peter Conti-Brown and Itay Goldstein in 2021 to serve as the leading forum for financial policy discussion at The Wharton School and beyond. WIFPR’s goals are two-fold: first, to connect better academic discourses between legal scholars and financial economists and second, to connect better academic discussions with the needs of policymakers. We believe in the power of ideas and knowledge creation in the service of public policy and seek to harness the intellectual vitality from the world’s leading research business school to inform financial policy processes of all kinds.

In time, we aim to make WIFPR a central clearinghouse for research, ideas, conversations, conferences, and much more at these intersections. Our substantive focus is on financial policy in its many varieties. For example, we are interested in capital markets and securities regulation; the regulation of the payment system; banking and financial institutions regulation; blockchain and digital asset regulation; bankruptcy and restructuring; and business, economic, and financial history, among many other topics.

WIFPR’s academic co-directors are Peter Conti-Brown and Itay Goldstein. Peter is the Class of 1965 Associate Professor of Financial Regulation and Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics. A legal scholar and a financial historian, Peter is a leading scholar of the Federal Reserve – its policies, its history, and its institutional design. Itay is the Joel S. Ehrenkranz Family Professor, a Professor of Finance, and a Professor of Economics (secondary appointment). He is currently the Chair of the Finance Department at Wharton. He is a leading scholar in the areas of corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets, who has written about financial crises and information in financial markets, among other topics. Together, Peter and Itay represent the two main disciplines that WIFPR seeks to unite.

We also are pleased to have Dr. Max Harris as our Senior Fellow. Max studies international monetary policy and its history and previously worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Our activities include a white paper series, roundtables, conferences, webinars, and guest speakers. In time, we plan to sponsor student research and events, prizes for top papers in various fields, and much more.

This blog serves three purposes. First, posts will share information on WIFPR’s many activities, whether on campus in Philadelphia or held virtually. Second, we will post on relevant research, current events in financial regulation, and other substantive topics of interest. And third, we will sponsor a book review series touching on all aspects of financial policy.

We want to hear from our readers. Follow us on Twitter or be in touch at WhartonIFPR@wharton.upenn.edu. Also, please sign up to receive email alerts of newly published research, events, and other announcements here.