ABFER 12th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Call for papers is opened. Closing date is 15 January 2025. The conference will be held on 19-22 May 2025 in Singapore.
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CALL FOR POSTERS 2025
We now invite submission of high quality papers from PhD students for the poster sessions on 20 and 21 May 2025 at the ABFER 12th Annual Conference
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11th ASIAN MONETARY POLICY FORUM
The 11th Asian Monetary Policy Forum (AMPF) commenced on 23 May 2024 at the Pan Pacific Singapore with a joint dinner with ABFER, followed by the forum on 24 May 2024 at Conrad Centennial Singapore
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CAPITAL MARKET DEVELOPMENT: CHINA AND ASIA
Webinar series on every third Thursday of the month
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INDUSTRY OUTREACH PANEL
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  • ABFER 12th ANNUAL CONFERENCE
  • CALL FOR POSTERS 2025
  • 11th ASIAN MONETARY POLICY FORUM
  • CAPITAL MARKET DEVELOPMENT: CHINA AND ASIA
  • INDUSTRY OUTREACH PANEL

SOME IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT US

2800 SUBMITTED Papers submitted to
Annual Conference
7366 AUTHORS Representing number
of authors
553 PRESENTED Papers presented at
Annual Conferences
186 JOURNALS Papers published in
significant journals
4200 PARTICIPANTS Participants at
Annual Conferences

Master Class by Professor Darrell Duffie

 

Advent of Digital Currencies

This class will review central bank digital currencies and potential private-sector stablecoin alternatives, with a focus on useful applications in the payment system.

We consider the ability to substitute for the functionality of digital tokens with faster and more efficient bank-based payment systems. Almost no attention in this course will be given to Bitcoin and other speculative crypto-currencies. Effective general digital currencies and faster payment systems could be disruptive to incumbent bank franchise values. Broad use of private-sector stablecoins could disrupt the implementation of central bank monetary policy. Narrow use of stablecoins in "wholesale" financial settlement systems is a potentially significant application. 


30
May
2019
Thursday
 Location: Siloso 3, Level 1



Program is subjected to change. Updated on 26 March 2019.

Speakers

9th Annual Conference
Master Class by Professor Sumit Agarwal

 

Doing Research on Household Sustainability

In this master class we will discuss household sustainability as it relates to three important areas — environment, social and finance. Household environmental sustainability relates to decisions about utilities, transportation and food. For instance consuming beef has a carbon footprint 20 times that or fish. Do prices and behavioral nudges help save utility bills of water and electricity. Household social sustainability relates to income inequality, gender inequality, inter generational inequality and also health inequality. Finally household finance sustainability relates to consumer literacy, spending, savings, investing and decision making.

26
May
2022
Thursday
Venue: Siloso 1, Level 1
Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa, 101 Siloso Road, Sentosa, Singapore 098970



Program is subjected to change. Updated on 2 June 2022.

Speakers



10th Annual Conference
Master Class by Professor Amir Sufi

 

Inequality in Finance and Macroeconomics

This class will review three studies I have coauthored with Atif Mian and Ludwig Straub: Indebted Demand, The Saving Glut of the Rich, and What explains the decline in r*: Rising income inequality versus demographic shifts. The basic point in this agenda is that the rise in top income shares since the 1980s has led to a decline in the equilibrium rate of return on assets, and it has also been a powerful force explaining why household debt to GDP ratios have risen globally. The key takeaway is that income inequality is more of an issue of fairness: that inequality matters for key macroeconomic aggregates, the financial system, and policy.

25
May
2023
Thursday
Venue: Azalea 2
Shangri-La Singapore, 22 Orange Grove Rd, Singapore 258350



Program is subjected to change. Updated on 31 May 2023.

Speakers

  • Professor Amir SUFI

    Professor Amir SUFI

     

    Bruce Lindsay Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

    Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also co-director of the Corporate Finance Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Sufi was awarded the 2017 Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association, given biennially to the top financial economics scholar under the age of 40. Professor Sufi's research focuses on finance and macroeconomics. His research on household debt and the economy forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press.

  • Professor Sumit AGARWAL

    Professor Sumit AGARWAL

     

    Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Professor, HOD Real Estate, Managing Director, Sustainable and Green Finance Institute, National University of Singapore and Senior Fellow of ABFER

    Sumit Agarwal is the Low Tuck Kwong Professor at the School of Business and Professor in the departments of Economics, Finance and Real Estate at the National University of Singapore. Previously, he held positions as a Professor of Finance at Georgetown University, senior financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a senior vice president and credit risk management executive in the Small Business Risk Solutions Group of Bank of America.

    Dr. Agarwal's research interests include issues relating to financial institutions, household finance, behavioral finance, international finance, real estate markets, urban economics and capital markets. He has published over eighty research articles in journals like the American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking among others. Additionally, he has co-written a book titled Kiasunomics and co-edited a collected volume on Household Credit Usage: Personal Debt and Mortgages.

    He is the co-editor of Real Estate Economics and an association editor at Management Science and Journal of Financial Services Research. He writes regular op-ed’s in the Straits Times and Forbes and is featured on various media outlets like the BBC, CNBC, and Fox on issues relating to finance, banking, and real estate markets. Sumit’s research is widely cited in leading newspapers and magazines like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, and the U.S Presidents Report to Congress. He also runs a blog on household financial decision making called Smart Finance.

    Dr. Agarwal has won various prestigious awards like the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Outstanding Researcher Award at the National University of Singapore, the Paul Samuelson TIAA-CREF certificate of excellence, the Terker Family Prizes in Investment Research Award from the Wharton School of Business, the Glucksman Institute Research Award from New York University and grants from the Russell Sage Foundation and the NBER/Sloan Foundation.

    Dr. Agarwal has been invited to present his research at many renowned universities such Columbia University, Northwestern University, University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, as well as institutions and central banks namely the IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank, European Union, Dutch Central Bank, Riksbank, OCC, and the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He has consulted with the World Bank, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, OCC, the Reserve Bank of India and Bank of America.

    He has also served as an adjunct professor and a scholar at the finance department at George Washington University, DePaul University, the Indian School of Business, HKUST, BIS and the World Bank. Agarwal received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

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Session Format

90 minutes lecture followed by 30 minutes Q&A.




11th Annual Conference
Master Class by Professor David Autor

 

Automation, New Work Creation, and Expertise Augmentation


Prof David Autor will offer a cohesive framework for understanding three distinct channels by which technological change may reshape the demand for labor — automation, new work creation, and expertise augmentation — and will consider recent empirical evidence that speaks to these channels.

23
May
2024
Thursday
Venue: Ocean 4 & 5, Level 2
Pan Pacific Singapore, 7 Raffles Boulevard, Marina Square, Singapore 039595



Program is subjected to change. Updated on 30 May 2024.

Speakers

  • Professor David AUTOR

    Professor David AUTOR

     

    Ford Professor of Economics and Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

    David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, codirector of the NBER Labor Studies Program and the MIT Shaping the Future of Work Initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.
    Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019, the Society for Progress Medal in 2021—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. In 2020, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers.” In 2023, Autor was selected as one of two researchers across all scientific fields a NOMIS Distinguished Scientist.

    The Economist magazine labeled Autor in 2019 as “The academic voice of the American worker.” Later that same year, and with equal justification, he was christened “Twerpy MIT Economist” by John Oliver of Last Week Tonight in a segment on automation and employment.

  • Professor Jessica PAN

    Professor Jessica PAN

     

    Professor of Economics, National University of Singapore and Fellow, ABFER

    Jessica Pan is Vice Provost (Graduate Education) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She is also Dean of NUS Graduate School (NUSGS). Prior to that, she was Vice Dean of Academic Programmes at NUSGS, Deputy Head of Research at the Department of Economics, and Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS).
    A labour economist by training, Prof Pan has been highly recognised for her research on applied topics in gender, education, and immigration. In recognition of her research accomplishments, she was awarded the NUS Young Researcher Award in 2022, Dean’s Chair in 2019, and the FASS Award for Promising Researcher in 2015. In 2020, she was elected as a fellow of the prestigious Econometric Society. She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics, the leading international network in labour economics, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

    Prof Pan currently serves as Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics. Previously, she was Associate Editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Journal of Population Economics. She is also Secretary (President-designate) of the Asian and Australasian Society of Labor Economics and serves regularly as a research consultant to various Singapore government ministries.

    Prof Pan received a Bachelor’s in Economics from the University of Chicago, followed by an MBA and PhD from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Session Format

90 minutes lecture followed by 30 minutes Q&A.