Research Symposium on Finance and Economics (RSFE)

Professor Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti Professor of Finance, Adelaide University, Australia Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti is a Professor of Finance at the Adelaide University, Australia. He has published over 50 research articles in outlets such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, European Journal of Finance, Economics Letters, Journal of Business Research, Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, International Review of Economics and Finance, Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, International Review of Finance, Australian Journal of Management, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, and Corporate Governance: An International Review. He has conducted policy-oriented research for think tanks such as Global Risk Institute in Financial Services, Toronto, Canada and USAID.

Robert Faff (FASSA, 2021-24) is Research Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest, Emeritus Professor at UQ and Honorary Adjunct Professor at Bond University. He has an international reputation in empirical finance research: 15 Australian Research Council grants (funding $4 million+); 370+ refereed journal publications – 50 x A* (ABDC); career citations 25,000+, with a h-index of 78 (Google Scholar). His particular passion is nurturing the career trajectories of early career researchers. Robert has supervised almost 50 PhD students to successful completion. Building on a 40-year+ academic career, his signature focus is “Pitching Research” [https://ssrn.com/abstract=2462059], with worldwide penetration signalled by: (a) > 30,000 SSRN downloads; (b) > 400 pitching talks/events; (c) at 37 Australian universities; (d) spanning 54 different countries. Further, he is the Founder & President of the InSPiR2eS research network [https://pitchingresearch.com/inspir2es-network/] and creator of the InSPiR2eS Centre for Responsible Science. In addition, Robert is current Editor-in-Chief of Pacific-Basin Finance Journal; formerly: Editor of Accounting and Finance (2002-2011).

Professor Tom Smith is one of the leading finance academics in Australia and has been ranked as the number one finance academic in Australia and New Zealand by both the Journal of Financial Literature and the Pacific Basin Finance Journal. Tom received his PhD from Stanford and is the leading researcher in Environmental Finance, Asset Pricing Theory and Tests; Design of Markets – Market Microstructure; and Derivatives. Tom has supervised over 50 PhD students to completion and his PhD students have over 50 tier 1 papers in their own names.

Balasingham Balachandran is a Professor of Finance at Monash University Malaysia. He is also serving as an Honorary Professor at La Trobe University. Prior to this, he worked at La Trobe University, Monash University-Australia, Victoria University of Wellington, and the University of Jaffna. He received a Master of Social Science and PhD in Finance from the University of Birmingham and a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of Jaffna. He has published several research papers in high-quality journals (A* journals based on the Australian Business Deans Council): Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, European Accounting Review, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, and Australian Tax Forum. Bala received Dean’s award in recognition of academic excellence in the research at La Trobe University in 2011. Bala has also received Dean’s Commendation in recognition of outstanding achievement in research publications at Monash University, Australia in 2007.

He has successfully supervised 17 PhD students. Nine of them have published papers at A* journals. In recognition of his HDR supervision, he was awarded the La Trobe Business School Research Excellence Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Supervision in 2019. Bala serves on the editorial boards of the Pacific Basin Finance Journal and Pacific Accounting Review.

His research focuses on corporate finance and corporate governance issues, including dividend policy, equity issuance, the effect of taxes on dividend policy, cash holdings, stock price crash risk, mergers and acquisitions, CEO power, executive compensation, earnings quality, audit fees, and carbon risk.

Huu Nhan Duong is a Professor of Finance at Monash University, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of corporate finance, derivatives markets, international finance, and market microstructure. His papers have been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Accounting Studies, Critical Finance Review, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of Financial Markets, among others. He has also received awards for papers presented at the Financial Management Association Meeting, the Asian Financial Association Conference, and the Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, and research grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC), and the Global Risk Institute (GRI).

Anurag Singh is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and independent cinematographer from India, with over three decades of experience in creating feature-length, mid-length, and short documentary films. He has worked extensively with various movements and civil society organisations such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA, Madhya Pradesh), Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS, Rajasthan), and the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI, New Delhi), among others, documenting people’s struggles for rights and narrating unheard stories of India’s structurally excluded communities. He has also made documentary films for notable NGOs such as SWRC/Barefoot College, Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), and Vikas Samvad. He is the founder and Director of Roughcut Productions, a unique collective of independent filmmakers, journalists, and photographers that has produced works for international entities such as the UNDP, ActionAid, Norwegian Church Aid, Google, and the Government of India, on projects in countries like Gambia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Afghanistan.

 

Anurag Singh has developed and taught practice-based documentary filmmaking modules at various institutions, including the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Doon University, and the School for Democracy. He has also contributed to the Centre for Development of Instructional Technology (CENDIT), an organization that pioneered the use of audiovisual technology to communicate and teach socio-political theories in India.

Professor Shashwat Alok is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Indian School of Business and Research Director of the Digital Identity Research Initiative. His research examines how digital infrastructure, data, fintech, policy, and regulation shape financial markets, expand financial inclusion, and affect firms and households in emerging economies.

His recent work studies how fintech, alternative data, and public digital infrastructure can expand credit access, improve risk assessment, and alter competition between banks and fintech lenders. His ongoing research examines open banking and women’s access to credit, the merchant-side effects of Buy Now, Pay Later, financial innovation and households’ willingness to pay for short-term liquidity. More broadly, his work asks how financial innovation can expand credit access while preserving fairness, competition, and prudent risk-taking.

Professor Alok’s research has been published in leading journals, including the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. His research has informed policy discussions in India, including through the Indian Economic Survey, the Reserve Bank of India’s Household Finance Committee Report, and his participation in pre-Budget consultations with the Prime Minister of India. He holds a PhD in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis and a BE in Computer Science from Manipal University.

Ankit Kalda is an Associate Professor of Finance and Jerome Bess Fellow at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His research focuses on household finance, with particular interest in the interaction between household debt and labor markets, insurance and intergenerational transmission of financial outcomes, and the distributional consequences of financial frictions across race, income, and generations. His ongoing work examines how bankruptcy protection shapes economic opportunity across generations, how frictions in insurance markets affect post-disaster recovery for vulnerable households, and how household financial decisions respond to technology and policy. His work has been published in top finance and economics journals and has informed public policy, including citations in reports by the Congressional Budget Office. He received his PhD in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis in 2019. Before his doctoral studies, Ankit completed his bachelors and master’s in economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. Outside of work, he enjoys meditating and reading philosophy.