Chicago Booth Conference on Finance and Development Schedule
Organized by: Emanuele Colonnelli, Emily Breza, and Christopher Woodruff
With support from: PEDL, Chicago Booth's Fama-Miller and Rustandy Centers, and J-PAL's Finance Sector
Location: Gleacher Center, 450 Cityfront Plaza Dr, Chicago, IL
| Note: Day One presentations are in room 100. Download PDF of Agenda here. | |
Day One: Friday, September 26, 2025 |
|
| Time (Central Time) |
Title |
| 10:15 a.m.—10:30 a.m. | Opening Remarks Emanuele Colonnelli, Chicago Booth |
| 10:30 a.m.—11:30 a.m. |
Panel 1: What Have We Learned from Empirical Development and Finance Research?
Emily Breza, Harvard University Asim Khwaja, Harvard Kennedy School Amit Seru, Stanford GSB Tarun Ramadorai, Imperial College London |
| 11:30 a.m.—12:30 p.m. |
Panel 2: Financial Theory and Macroeconomics in Development
Garance Genicot, Georgetown University Robert Townsend, MIT Douglas Diamond, Chicago Booth Chang-Tai Hsieh, Chicago Booth |
| 12:30 p.m.—1:15 p.m. | Lunch -- Room 621 |
| 1:15 p.m.—2:30 p.m. |
Keynote Conversation: The Future of Financing Development
Marianne Bertrand, Chicago Booth (Moderator) Michael Kremer, University of Chicago Dean Karlan, Northwestern University Alfonso García Mora, IFC Note: Chatham House Rule apply |
| 2:30 p.m.—3:00 p.m. | Break |
| 3:00 p.m.—4:00 p.m. |
Panel 3: Fintech, Digital Payments, DPI, and AI
Tavneet Suri, MIT Sloan Luke Kyohere, Onafriq Manju Puri, Duke Fuqua Paul Niehaus, UC San Diego and GiveDirectly |
| 4:00 p.m.—5:00 p.m. |
Panel 4: High-Growth Entrepreneurship, Large Firms, Venture Capital, and Private Equity Christopher Woodruff, Oxford University Eghosa Omoigui, EchoVC Partners Denis Medvedev, IFC Paul Gompers, Harvard Business School |
| 5:00 p.m.—5:30 p.m. | Break & Cocktail Reception—Room 621 |
| 5:30 p.m.—6:30 p.m. |
Keynote Fireside Chat with Raghuram Rajan, Chicago Booth
Moderator: Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan, Brown University Note: Chatham House Rule apply |
| 6:30 p.m. | Dinner |
| Note: Day Two presentations are in room 300. |
|
Day Two: Saturday, September 27, 2025 |
|
| Time (Central Time) |
Title |
| 8:00 a.m.—8:30 a.m. | Continental Breakfast—300 foyer |
| 8:30 a.m.—9:40 a.m. | Lightning Round Session 1 Perceptions and Performance Under Incentive Contracts Francis Annan, UC Berkeley Household Portfolio and Deposit Insurance: Implications for the Supply of Safe Assets Nicola Limodio, Bocconi University Interoperable Payment Infrastructure and Retail Investment Nirupama Kulkarni, CAFRAL Financial Contracting Under Information Asymmetry Apoorv Gupta, Dartmouth Open Banking and Credit Allocation Janis Skrastins, University of Utah |
| 9:40 a.m.—10:10 a.m. | Break |
| 10:10 a.m.—11:05 a.m. | Lightning Round Session 2
Startups in Africa Tommaso Porzio, Columbia Business School Measuring the Impact of Impact Measurement: An Experiment with Indian Social Enterprises Benjamin Roth, Harvard Business School Microfinance Institutions and Economic Development: Evidence from Peru Julia Fonseca, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Financing Women’s Investments with Performance- Contingent Contracts: A Field Experiment in Pakistan Muhammad Meki, University of Oxford |
| 11:05 a.m.—11:35 a.m. | Break |
| 11:35 a.m.—12:30 p.m. |
Lightning Round Session 3
Financial Constraints to Exporting: Experimental Evidence from Rwanda’s Export Credit Guarantee Fund Lauren Falcao Bergquist, Yale University The Supply and Demand of Bank Loans to Agri-SMEs in Africa Vittorio Bassi, University of Southern California Beliefs as Inputs: Experimental Evidence from the World’s Most Numerous Firms Erin Kelley, Chicago Harris Information traps and the missing capital in emerging markets Max Miller, Harvard Business School |
| 12:30 p.m. | End of Conference |