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Newsletter - January 2018
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Dear Researchers,
This is the second annual newsletter for the CEPR Network on Household Finance. This network, led by Michael Haliassos of Goethe University Frankfurt, aims to promote research on household financial behaviour that is both scientifically excellent and relevant to policymakers and market participants. It does so through organisation of specialised scientific conferences and workshops and of events targeted specifically at policy makers, regulators, and practitioners; promotion of young researchers; dissemination of household finance research; fruitful interaction with policy makers and industry partners; promotion of innovative research methods and creation of high-quality micro-datasets of financial behaviour.
For continued updates on the network’s activities, please refer to the dedicated page on CEPR’s website, which can be found here.
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Events
Future events
The Third European Workshop on Household Finance will take place in London at Imperial College Business School (11-12 May). More details are to be found on the event webpage.
The next European Conference on Household Finance will be held at Ortygia Business School in Sicily, Italy on 5-6 October 2018. More details will be available in May 2018.
Past Events
The network held two major research events in 2017:
1. Second European Workshop on Household Finance, Copenhagen, 28-29 April 2017
The event held at Copenhagen Business School included six sessions and 12 papers. Several topics relevant to household finance were discussed: the effects of distorted financial advice, regulation’s role in housing leverage, the evolution of wealth inequality, regulation’s role in delinquency, gender norms and its effect on household financial choices, peer effects and the importance of household financial literacy, the effect of social media on household investment decisions, and the effect of correlation neglect.
With support from the Think Forward Initiative (TFI), the Workshop launched a CEPR Network Prize for the best student paper on household finance. The first edition of the prize was awarded to Matteo Benetton (LS E) for his paper on "Lenders' competition and macro-prudential regulation: A model of the UK mortgage supermarket". Short videos were produced to summarise the sessions and can be viewed here.
Local organiser: Steffen Andersen
2. CEPR European Conference on Household Finance, Sardinia, 6-7 October 2017
This conference was organised by EIEF, University of Naples, and the Swedish House of Finance with additional support from TFI. For the second time, a Prize for the best PhD student paper was awarded, this time to Julio Galvez (CEMFI) for his paper on "Household portfolio choices and nonlinear income risk".
The Conference included four sessions and 13 papers. Several themes were discussed: government-backed student loans, incentives for mortgage renegotiation, evidence and explanations for credit card puzzles, consumer spending during retirement, effect of house price and inflation expectations on households’ decisions, the role of robo-advising on investors’ decisions, effects of import competition on household debt and of deposit insurance on households' portfolio allocations.
Local Organizers: Luigi Guiso, Tullio Jappelli, and Monica Paiella
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On Fintech
The CEPR European Conference on Household Finance in Sardinia hosted a session on financial technology, or “Fintech”, where two studies on the impact of financial technological services on household finances were presented. This two-paper session on Fintech complemented the Think Forward Initiative (TFI) event that kicked off the conference with a lively forum on the creation of tools that help people make better financial decisions and on the use of technology to speed the process up. Despite being adopted at a progressively faster pace, the potential and drawbacks of Fintech have seen relatively little research. These papers fill some of the gap, but also show the need for further joint research by practitioners and researchers especially in the direction of developing tools targeted to the more naïve and less financially literate costumers.
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Partnerships
Our network has been active in fostering existing international collaborations and partnerships, as well as in developing new ones.
• Our early collaboration with the NBER Working Group on Household Finance has been reinforced by the participation of the two NBER Directors, Brigitte Madrian and Steve Zeldes, in the organization of the 2017 CEPR Network Conference in Sardinia, Italy, as well as by mutual posting of major events and calls.
• Think Forward Initiative
The CEPR Network continued and expanded its partnership with TFI aimed at promoting individual empowerment in financial decision making. In 2016, this partnership had focused on the organization of events and activities to disseminate key research findings in household finance to practitioners, policy makers, and the general public. In 2017, the partnership was significantly extended so that industry and research can further mutually strengthen each other.
During the Sardinia conference, on October 5, TFI held a networking event and issued a first “Research Challenge”: a call for research projects with potential relevance for industry applications aimed at empowering households to deal with their finances. The call was widely disseminated and generated 20 project proposals, of which 8 were selected by the TFI Research Board for funding in the second stage (writing up a concise research report based on existing research or short new research). Projects will receive not only scientific evaluation but also assessment by innovation experts in the financial and technology sectors, especially before they are put through the TFI accelerator program. Under this program, which is the third stage, interested TFI industry partners will collaborate with researchers to test and develop innovative tools that are expected to make a difference in household financial decision making.
For more information on the funded proposals, please visit the TFI webpage.
• The National University of Singapore Business School
During 2017, the CEPR HF Network established a partnership with the National University of Singapore Business School and the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research (ABFER). The partnership, initially approved for 2017 to 2019, will be launched by co-organising the next CEPR European Conference on Household Finance in October 2018.
• EDHEC PhD Programme in Finance
We are very happy to announce that the EDHEC Business School, PhD in Finance Programme, has recently become academic partner and sponsor of the CEPR Network on Household Finance. The EDHEC Business School will support, in the first instance, the Network Events taking place in 2018.
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Promotion of Young Researchers
Starting with the second Workshop on Household Finance held in Copenhagen, the Network launched a PhD student paper prize with the financial support of TFI. The prize is awarded to the best paper presented at one of our Conferences or Workshops that is solely authored by PhD students (or was substantially written during the candidates’ doctoral studies). The winners are selected by the CEPR Network Steering Committee after presenting their papers on the first day of the conference or workshop. Beyond a modest monetary award, the paper’s authors are featured on the Network website and are given a plaque to commemorate the award. It is hoped that this form of recognition will encourage high-level research by promising graduate students worldwide in the field of household finance.
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New CEPR Network Affiliate
The HF Network welcomes Vimal Balasubramaniam of Warwick Business School as a CEPR Network Affiliate. Vimal will be contributing to Network event reporting while our two recently renewed CEPR Network Affiliates, Cristian Badarinza and Yigitcan Karabulut, continue their contributions to website management and committee meetings support, respectively.
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