Research

Tokenized funds are being pitched as a faster, cheaper way to hold everything from Treasuries to real estate — but strip away the blockchain branding, and how much of the actual fund really changed? In a new white paper from Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and Director of Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy and Co-authors Changyong Song and Xiaofei Zhao of Georgetown University dig into the smart-contract code behind tokenized U.S. Treasury funds to identify exactly which pieces of a fund's operations — issuance, transfers, custody, valuation — actually move on-chain, and which ones don't.

Private credit has ballooned into a multi-trillion-dollar market built on assets that rarely trade and are only revalued once a quarter. So how would anyone know if the reported numbers were falling behind reality? In a new research paper from Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and Director of Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy and co-authors Isil Erel (Ohio State University) and Changyong Song (Georgetown University) examine Business Development Companies, the public vehicles that combine continuously traded stock prices with quarterly net asset values, to test whether the market sees credit trouble coming before it shows up in a fund's official books.

The SEC has formally proposed letting public companies report earnings twice a year instead of four times. The UK already made this shift — twice. In a new white paper by visiting fellow Marshall Lux and research assistants Daniel Tuero and Alejandro Pelaez, they use the UK's return to semi-annual reporting in 2014 as a case study for what a similar U.S. shift would actually change.

Credit card rate caps could push millions of borrowers toward products that don't even have to disclose an APR. In a new white paper by visiting fellow Marshall Lux and research assistants Olivia Zhao and Ahlay Hussain, they examine five fringe credit products — Buy Now Pay Later, rent-to-own, Earned Wage Access, subprime auto lending, and credit repair — that serve the consumers with the fewest alternatives and the least room for error.

In a new white paper by visiting fellow Marshall Lux and research assistant Michael Sapozhnikov, they examine the rapid rise of prediction markets and what it means for finance, policy, and regulation. Prediction market volumes grew to nearly $64 billion in 2025 and are on pace to reach $325 billion in 2026. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are paying attention. So is the Federal Reserve. As major financial institutions explore this space and regulators scramble to keep up, understanding prediction markets is becoming essential for anyone at the intersection of finance and policy.

The GENIUS Act created a regulatory framework for stablecoins. But it left a critical gap unaddressed: transaction privacy. In a new white paper by visiting fellow Yaya J. Fanusie and research assistant Julen Payne, they argue that privacy-preserving technology is not a market preference for the stablecoin industry — it is a regulatory necessity.

Public-private partnerships are supposed to help close the $1 trillion annual global infrastructure gap. But their record is mixed. In a new white paper by visiting fellow Marshall Lux and research assistants Bernie Steinki-Moros and Sophia Ivanov, they examine when PPPs work, when they fail, and what it takes to get them right.

In order to help navigate the debates surrounding proxy advisors and to understand which claims are warranted, unwarranted, or in need of more research, this paper will discuss the work of proxy advisors, their methodologies, why leaders across Wall Street and Washington are challenging them, how far those criticisms are justified, and whether their influence will wane in the age of AI.

By approaching both sides of the Fed’s dual mandate, this white paper aims to explain the key measures used by the Fed to set monetary policy, including their data sources, how they are calculated, their significance, and other important details.

The paper examines how financial institutions can adopt decentralized finance (DeFi) while managing illicit finance risks, highlighting blockchain-native compliance tools like analytics, decentralized identity, and programmable compliance, and urging regulators to enable innovation through clear guidance.