Shashwat Alok

Associate Professor of Finance

Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

ISB Alumni Endowment Research Fellow

Research Director - Digital Identity Research Initiative (DIRI)

Education

Ph.D. Business Administration - Finance (2013), Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis

B.E. Computer Science and Engineering (2008), Manipal University

Research interests

Political Economy/Law and Finance, Household Finance and Financial Inclusion, Climate Finance and ESG

Awards/Honors/Research Grants:

ISB Alumni Research Award (2020-2021)

SRITNE Research Grant - $8000 (2019)

NSE-ISB Trading Laboratory (Two Research Grants) - $20000 (2019)

NYU-NSE Initiative for Emerging Market Studies (Research Grant) - $7500 (2019)

EY - Institute for Emerging Market Studies (Two Research Grants) - $22000 (2019)

EY - Institute for Emerging Market Studies (Research Grant) - $35000 (2016)

NYU-NSE Initiative for Emerging Market Studies (Research Grant) - $7500 (2016)

Hubert C. Moog Scholar for Academic Excellence, Washington University in St. Louis (2012)

Latest Updates

May 2025: Presenter and discussant at the FIRS 2025 conference in Seoul, Korea.

May 2025: Discussant at the ABFER 12th Annual Conference in Singapore. In their paper "Poverty Spreads in Deposit Markets," Arkodipta Sarkar and Emilio Bisetti document novel findings on systematic deposit-rate spreads across the income distribution. The same bank offers richer areas higher rates on identical deposit products. The thesis is that banks compete with other assets that high-income households invest in. Studies on banking competition need to consider competitive pressure from non-bank asset classes!

May 2025: Visiting Research Scholar at NUS Business School.

March 2025: Discussant at the WEFIDEV-RFS-CEPR 2025 conference. In their paper "Timing lumpy investments with informal bridge loans and clunky formal loans: Evidence from Thailand," Anil K. Jain, ROBERT M. TOWNSEND, and FAN WANG document novel and insightful findings on the role of informal moneylenders in facilitating productive investments. The thesis is that informal loans act as a bridge between two formal short-term loans (1-year duration), effectively increasing the duration of formal loans. Such formal-informal-formal bridges help finance longer-term capital investments.

March 2025: Co-organizer for the "ISB-CAFRAL Conference on The Impact of Digitalization Households and Firms" at ISB's Mohali campus.

January 2025: Presented my work, "Transportation Technology and Gentrification: Evidence from the Entry of Rideshare Services," at the CODE Conference.

December 2024: Presented my work, "Open Banking and Digital Payments: Implications for Credit Access," at the ISB-NBER Conference.

October 2024: Webinar on "Open Banking and Digital Payments: Implications for Credit Access" at ABFER Webinar Series.

June 2024: Gave a keynote Lecture titled "Open Banking and Digital Payments: Implications for Credit Access" at RSFE Conference, Krea University

May 2024: Visiting Research Scholar at NUS Business School.

May 2024: Discussant at ABFER 11th Annual Conference. In their recent working paper, "Diverging Banking Sector: New Facts and Macro
Implications", Shohini Kundu, Tyler Muir, and Jinyuan Zhang offer novel stylized facts regarding heterogeneity in the US banking sector:

–Low-rate Banks: Higher physical branches, low deposit rates, longer maturity assets, Low/No deposit beta, safer assets – lower credit spread, older customers

–High-rate banks: Fewer physical branches, deposit rates close to fed fund rates, shorter maturity assets, higher deposit beta, riskier assets – higher credit spread, younger customers

•Implications for Monetary Policy Transmission:

•↑ Interest rates ⇒ High-Rate banks ↑ deposit rates ⇒ Attract deposits away from low-rate banks ⇒ ↓ maturity transformation.