Conference schedule
Day 1: Friday, May 16, 2025
11:30-12:30 p.m.
Lunch and pick up conference materials (West Village H 108-110)
12:30-12:40 p.m.
Opening remarks: Nicole Boyson (Finance Group Chair) & David De Cremer (Dunton Family Dean)
Session 1
Session Chair: Andrés Shahidinejad
12:45-1:25 p.m.
“The Impact of Finfluencers on Retail Investment”
Authors: Isiah Hull (Norwegian Business School); Yingjie Qi (Copenhagen Business School)
Discussant: Christopher Palmer (MIT)
1:25-2:05 p.m.
“Tyranny of the Personal Network: The Limits of Arm's Length Fundraising in Venture Capital”
Authors: Sabrina T. Howell, Dean Parker (NYU); Ting Xu (Univ. of Toronto)
Discussant: Morten Sorensen (Dartmouth)
2:05-2:45 p.m.
Coffee break
Session 2
Session Chair: Fabricius Somogyi
2:45-3:25 p.m.
“Private Capital Markets and Inequality”
Authors: Ararat Gocmen (University College London); Clara Martínez-Toledano (Imperial College London); Vrinda Mittal (UNC- Chapel Hill)
Discussant: Olivia Kim (HBS)
3:25-4:05 p.m.
“What Do Unions Do? Incentives and Investments”
Authors: Vojislav Maksimovic, Liu Yang (Univ. of Maryland)
Discussant: Hyunseob Kim (FRB – Chicago)
4:05-4:45 p.m.
Coffee break
4:45-5:25 p.m.
“The Real Cost of Benchmarking”
Authors: Sebastian Hanson, Christian Kontz (Stanford)
Discussant: Samuel Hartzmark (Boston College)
5:30-8:30 p.m.
Dinner reception at the Faculty Club (EXP)
Day 2: Saturday, May 17, 2025
8:00-8:35 a.m.
Breakfast at the Alumni Center (Sixth Floor, 716 Columbus Ave.)
Session 3
Session Chair: Weiling Liu
8:45-9:25 a.m.
“National Pricing and the Geography of U.S. Life Insurers”
Authors: Derek Wenning (Indiana Univ.)
Discussant: Daniel Weagley (Univ. of Tennessee)
9:25-10:05 a.m.
“Divided Government and the Stock Market”
Authors: Theofanis Papamichalis (Univ. of Cambridge); Dean Ryu (Harvard, Oxford); Mungo Wilson (Oxford Univ.)
Discussant: Alok Kumar (Univ. of Miami)
10:05-10:20 a.m.
Coffee break
10:20-11:00 a.m.
“Measuring and Mitigating Racial Disparities in Large Language Model Mortgage Underwriting”
Authors: Donald E. Bowen III (Lehigh University); Luke C.D. Stein (Babson College); S. McKay Price, Ke Yang (Lehigh University)
Discussant: James Weston (Rice Univ.)
11:00-11:05 p.m.
Closing remarks and adjourn for lunch
11:05-12:00 p.m.
Lunch at the Alumni Center (Sixth Floor, 716 Columbus Ave.)
Previous conference programs
Conference organizers
The conference program committee includes Huang Da, Weiling Liu, Saptarshi Mukherjee, Fabricius Somogyi, Andres Shahidinejad, Ali Sharifkhani, and Kandarp Srinivasan. Please direct queries about the conference to the organizers.