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
June 2024: Gave a keynote Lecture titled ""Does Open Banking Expand 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.
April 2024: Presented my recent, co-authored study, "Does Open Banking Expand Credit Access?" at the 1st Workshop on Finance and Markets, organized by the Institute for Economic Growth
March 2024: Discussant at the SGFIN Research Conference on Sustainability organized by the Sustainable and Green Finance Institute. In their recent working paper, "Financial Frictions and Pollution Abatement Over the Life Cycle of Firms," Min Fang, Po-Hsuan Hsu, and Chi-Yang Tsou examine the impact of the interaction between financial friction and environmental regulations on firm investments in pollution abatement.
January 2024: Presented my co-authored study, "Financial Inclusion and Alternate Credit Scoring: Role of Big Data and Machine Learning in Fintech," at the IFC’s 2nd Annual Research Conference on Digitalization and Development. In this study, we examine the discriminatory ability of individual borrowers' mobile and social footprints in predicting loan defaults.
Individual’s digital mobile footprints have significant predictive power in predicting default.
Importantly, these variables have incremental predictive power over and above the CIBIL credit score.
Can be used to create alternate credit scoring models and expand credit access to previously excluded borrowers.
Counterfactual: About 17% of borrowers without a credit bureau score who were denied loans would have been approved.
Suggests that digital inclusion can lead to financial inclusion.
December 2023: Discussant at the CAFRAL Annual Conference Financial System and Macroeconomy in Emerging Economies. In her recent working paper, "Desperate Capital Breeds Productivity Loss: Evidence from Public Pension Investments in Private Equity," Vrinda Mittal examines the impact of Private Equity Buyouts on labor productivity.
