Webinar on 20th August to feature Dr. Julapa Jagtiani, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; Prof. Raghavendra (Raghu) Rau, University of Cambridge; and Dr. Marina Niessner, Indiana University

7 August, 2025, Bengaluru: As part of its initiative to promote the dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academic and industry professionals, the Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a panel discussion titled, ‘Beyond Intuition: AI, Crypto, and Social Algorithms Shaping the Future of Finance’, featuring: Dr. Julapa Jagtiani – Senior Economic Advisor and Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; Prof. Raghavendra (Raghu) Rau – Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professor of Finance, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; Dr. Marina Niessner – Professor of Finance, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. The webinar will be held on 20 August 2025, at 6:30 PM (IST).

To register, please click HERE. A Zoom link for the webinar will be shared upon registration.

Abstract:

Digital technologies are transforming the architecture and operation of global financial systems rapidly. The webinar discusses three of the most significant and intersecting trends: artificial intelligence in financial decisions, crypto market dynamics, and the algorithmic build-out of investor behavior across social media.

Artificial intelligence, in the guise of large language models, is increasingly being applied to credit scoring, risk management, and portfolio allocation. The models are highly computationally intensive and are usually black boxes. Large-scale adoption raises concerns around explainability, fairness, energy sustainability, and systemic concentration risk. Most importantly, perhaps, AI tools are not data or incentive agnostic; they reflect the data and incentives employed to train them and pose serious material questions regarding their use in high-stakes financial applications.

Meanwhile, the development of crypto markets has uncovered enduring informational asymmetries. "Whales," or large digital asset owners, consistently exhibit a pattern of trading that predicts positive returns, whereas smaller retail investors close out positions prematurely. These biases imply a market structure highly skewed in favor of the clever few over stories of democratized finance.

Added to these trends is that of social media. Retail trading volumes and financial sentiment are increasingly influenced by attention dynamics, which are often disconnected from fundamentals. Empirical evidence suggests that crypto content promoted by celebrities has the power to drive intraday volume surges of more than 8 percent yet proceeds to generate negative expected returns for followers. It has also been discovered that exposure to inauthentic or misleading financial content lowers trust and deters engagement with genuine sources of information.

The webinar will analyze these trends from the perspective of new empirical research. The session looks to describe the risks and opportunities of AI and fintech innovation, and how social algorithms and digital narratives are restructuring financial behavior, access, and governance in the post-intuition age.

SPEAKER DETAILS

Dr. Julapa Jagtiani is a Senior Economic Advisor and Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. She also serves as a Central Bank Research Fellow at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and is a Fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center. At the Philly Fed, Dr. Jagtiani has been actively involved in several supervisory policy initiatives. Her recent research focuses on the evolving dynamics of bank–fintech partnerships, the application of AI/ML and alternative data in lending, and the regulatory and systemic implications of cryptocurrencies. She has published widely in leading academic journals and plays a key role in organizing the Philadelphia Fed’s renowned Annual Fintech Conference series. Dr. Jagtiani holds a PhD in Finance and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business, where she was a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow.

Dr. Raghavendra (Raghu) Rau is the Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professor of Finance at Cambridge Judge Business School. He has previously served as the Gresham Professor of Business at Gresham College and held the Ambank Chair of Financial Services at the Universiti of Malaya. Dr. Rau is the incoming President of the Financial Management Association, a past President of the European Finance Association, and a former Editor of Financial Management. He is a founding director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) and a member of the Cambridge Corporate Governance Network (CCGN). He currently serves on the editorial boards of leading journals, including Management Science, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of Banking and Finance, among others. His research on corporate finance, governance, and financial innovation has been widely cited and frequently featured in global media outlets such as The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist.

Dr. Marina Niessner is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. Before joining Kelley, she was the Judith C. and William G. Bollinger Visiting Associate Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She previously served as Vice President on the Global Stock Selection team at AQR Capital Management and as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management. Dr. Niessner holds a B.A. in Economics and Statistics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. Her research lies at the intersection of behavioral finance and emerging technologies, with a particular focus on FinTech, artificial intelligence, and cryptocurrencies. Her recent work explores the influence of financial social media on market dynamics, the propagation of fake news online, and retail investor behavior. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Accounting Research. It has also been featured in major media outlets, including the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.