Viral V. Acharya is the C.V. Starr Professor of Economics in the Department of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business (NYU-Stern). He was a Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during January 2017 to 23rd July 2019 in charge of Monetary Policy, Financial Markets, Financial Stability, and Research. He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Corporate Finance and International Finance and Macroeconomics, a Research Affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). He is a member of the Bundesbank Research Council since January 2025 and an invited member of the Bellagio Group of academics and policy-makers from central banks and finance ministries since 2021.

He is or has been an Academic Advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, New York and Philadelphia, and the Board of Governors, and has provided Academic Expert service to the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He was a member of the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee (CFRAC) of the Financial Stability Oversight Council for 2023-26, a Scientific Advisor to the Sveriges Riksbank (February 2024-January 2026), and also a member of the Financial Advisory Roundtable (FAR) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 2020-25.

His primary research interest is in theoretical and empirical analysis of systemic risk of the financial sector, its regulation and its genesis in government- and policy-induced distortions, an inquiry that cuts across several other strands of research – credit risk and liquidity risk, their interactions and agency-theoretic foundations, as well as their general equilibrium consequences. In recent work, he has also studied inflation uncertainty and the impact of pandemic and climate-change related risks.

Shashwat Alok is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He joined ISB in 2013 after receiving his PhD in Finance from the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently the Research Director at the Digital Identity Research Initiative.
His primary research interests are in the areas of corporate finance. In particular, his research focuses on understanding the impact of the law, government policy, and institutions on firms and individual behaviour, with a greater focus on emerging markets. His recent work seeks to examine the role of alternative data and fintech in expanding financial inclusion, and the impact of climate change on firms and capital allocation.

Professor Alok is the recipient of multiple prestigious grants, and his work has been accepted at leading international conferences such as those hosted by the American Finance Association, the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research, the European Finance Association, and the Financial Intermediation Research Society. His research has been published or accepted in top academic journals such as the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Prof Alok's research has been cited by the Indian Economic Survey (2018-2019) and the Reserve Bank of India's Household Finance Committee Report (2017). His research has also featured in major Indian media outlets, including the Economic Times and the Times of India.

Before joining the PhD programme, he graduated among the top of his class in Computer Science and Engineering from the Manipal University. He was the recipient of the Hubert C. Moog Scholar for academic excellence while pursuing his PhD at the Washington University in St Louis.

Michael Spence is the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an Senior Professor at Bocconi University in Milan, and an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford University, and a Distinguished Academic Visitor at Queens’ College, Cambridge.

In 2001, he received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in the field of information economics.

He is the author of “The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World,” Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 10, 2011). His new book, written with Gordon Brown, Mohamed El-Erian and Reid Lidow is “Permacrisis: How to Fix a Fractured World,” Simon and Schuster, Sept 2023.

He is a Senior Advisor to Jasper Ridge Partners and a Senior Advisor to General Atlantic Partners. He chairs the Advisory Boards of the Asia Global Institute and the MBZ University of Artificial Intelligence. He was the Chairman of The Independent Commission on Growth and Development (2006-2010). He is a member of the Advisory Councils of the Luohan Academy in Hangzhou and the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford. He served as Dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999 and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University from 1984 to 1990.

He was awarded the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching and the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to American economists under age 40 for a "significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge."

From 1984 to 1990, Spence served as the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, overseeing Harvard College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Continuing Education.

From 1977 to 1979, he was a member of the Economics Advisory Panel of the National Science Foundation and in 1979 served as a member of the Sloan Foundation Economics Advisory Committee. At various times, he has served as a member of the editorial boards of American Economics Review, Bell Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Theory, and Public Policy.

Steven Davis studies working arrangements, business dynamics, economic fluctuations, policy uncertainty and other topics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and other leading scholarly journals. He hosts Economics, Applied – a video podcast series sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

Davis is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, IZA research fellow, senior academic fellow with the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research, adviser to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, senior adviser to the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, and an elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. He was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for more than 35 years, including service as a chaired professor and as deputy dean of the faculty.

Davis is a co-creator of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Indices, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, the Work-from-Home Map project, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He cofounded and co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. He has received research grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffmann Foundation, Templeton Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation, and other organizations. In 2012, he was awarded the Addington Prize in Measurement for “Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty.”

His teaching experience includes Ph.D. courses in macroeconomics and labor economics at the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Maryland; MBA courses in macroeconomics, money and banking, business strategy, and financial institutions for Chicago Booth; and executive MBA courses in macroeconomics for Chicago Booth in Barcelona, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore. Davis has also taught undergraduate courses in microeconomics, econometrics, and money and banking at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Davis has served as an expert in many litigation matters. In the antitrust area, he has testified and consulted on market definition, dominance, competitive relationships, exclusionary practices, price discrimination, and collusive conduct. In mortgage lending and consumer finance, he has testified and consulted on class certification, liability, and damages. He has also offered testimony and analysis of damages in breach of contract and credit market discrimination. Past engagements include matters pertaining to auto loans and leases, containerboard and corrugated products, microprocessors, mortgage loans, pharmaceuticals, software products and markets, specialty grocery products, trade shows, viatical and life settlements, and workers’ compensation insurance. Outside of litigation matters, he has consulted on labor market developments, the macroeconomic outlook, capital planning in a large financial institution, and the use of text-based methods to quantify tax reform likelihoods.

Davis has written for the Atlantic, Financial Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Los Angeles Times, Time, Wall Street Journal and other media. He has appeared on BBC, Bloomberg TV, CBS, CGTN, Channel News Asia, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, NBC Network News, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and the U.S. Public Broadcasting System, among others.