Yao Zeng
Assistant Professor of Finance
Cynthia and Bennett Golub Faculty Scholar (2023-25)
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Research Fellow (Asset Pricing), NBER
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I work on the intersection of asset pricing and corporate finance with a focus on financial intermediation. My research agenda explores how technologies and non-banks shape the landscape and evolution of money, banking, and payments, and the financial stability and macroeconomic implications.
An overview article for the IMF's Finance & Development on the changing landscape of financial intermediation and how to address the associated stability risks, a panel discussion at the IMF-World Bank annual meetings on market-based finance, and an interview with Forbes on payments, dollar dominance, and stablecoins summarize my research.
Publications
"Bank Debt, Mutual Fund Equity, and Swing Pricing in Liquidity Provision," with Yiming Ma and Kairong Xiao
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Open-End Fund Liquidity Risk Management Programs and Swing Pricing
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Money Market Fund Reforms
Media Mentions: Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy and Regulation
"Stablecoin Runs and the Centralization of Arbitrage," with Yiming Ma and Anthony Lee Zhang
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming
Mentioned in the IMF's 2024 Global Financial Stability Report
Media Mentions: Financial Times, Forbes, Chicago Booth Review (1), Chicago Booth Review (2), NPR Planet Money
"FinTech Lending and Cashless Payments," with Pulak Ghosh and Boris Vallee
Journal of Finance, forthcoming
Media Mentions: Knowledge@Wharton
"Steering a Ship in Illiquid Waters: Active Management of Passive Funds," with Naz Koont, Yiming Ma, and Lubos Pastor
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming
Mentioned in the New York Fed's Liberty Street Economics
Media Mentions: Financial Times (1), Financial Times (2), Barron's, Knowledge@Wharton, Chicago Booth Review, Becker Friedman Institute, ETF Stream
"Mutual Fund Liquidity Transformation and Reverse Flight to Liquidity," with Yiming Ma and Kairong Xiao
Review of Financial Studies, 35(10): 4674-711, October 2022.
Replicated for a sample of global funds in the IMF Financial Stability Report
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Open-End Fund Liquidity Risk Management Programs and Swing Pricing
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Money Market Fund Reforms
Mentioned in the Federal Reserve's November 2021 Financial Stability Report
Mentioned by New York Fed Executive Vice President Lorie K. Logan in her remarks on Treasury Market Liquidity and Early Lessons from the Pandemic Shock
"Silence is Safest: Information Disclosure When the Audience's Preferences are Uncertain," with Philip Bond
Journal of Financial Economics, 145(1): 178-93, July 2022.
Media Mentions: Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog
"Mutual Funds as Venture Capitalists? Evidence from Unicorns," with Sergey Chernenko and Josh Lerner
Review of Financial Studies, 34(5): 2362-410, May 2021. Code to Download Data
Media Mentions: Reuters, Bloomberg (Matt Levine's Money Stuff Column), Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, Boston Globe, Citywire, MoFo Jumpstarter
"Marketplace Lending: A New Banking Paradigm?" with Boris Vallee
Review of Financial Studies, 32(5): 1939-82, May 2019. Replication Code and Data
Media Mentions: HBS Working Knowledge, PYMTS.com
"Financing Entrepreneurial Production: Security Design with Flexible Information Acquisition," with Ming Yang
Review of Financial Studies, 32(3): 819-63, March 2019.
"Multi-Agent Inference in Social Networks: A Finite Population Learning Approach," with Jianqing Fan and Xin Tong
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 110, Theory and Methods: 149-58, April 2015.
Working Papers
"Tracing the Impact of Payment Convenience on Deposits: Evidence from Depositor Activeness," with Xu Lu and Yang Song
Media Mentions: Knowledge@Wharton
Previously circulated as "The Making of an Alert Depositor: How Payment and Interest Drive Deposit Dynamics"
"The Effect of Instant Payments on the Banking System: Liquidity Transformation and Risk-Taking," with Ding Ding, Rodrigo Gonzalez, and Yiming Ma
Media Mentions: Central Banking, Valor Econômico
"ETF Arbitrage under Liquidity Mismatch," with Kevin Pan
Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Finance
Arthur Warga Award for the Best Paper in Fixed Income, SFS Finance Cavalcade (North America)
Finalist of the ECB Research Prize in memory of Ieke van den Burg
Mentioned by SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson, Jr. in his Statement on Proposed Rules Regarding Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)
Media Mentions: Bloomberg (Matt Levine's Money Stuff Column), ETF Stream (Interview), ETF Stream (2), Bloomberg (2), NBER Digest, Financial Times (1), Financial Times (2), Washington Post, DTCC, Alpha Architect, Absolut Research
"A Dynamic Theory of Mutual Fund Runs and Liquidity Management"
Revise and Resubmit, Review of Financial Studies, invited submission
First Prize for the Best Finance Theory Job Market Paper, Finance Theory Group
Trefftzs Award for the Best Student Paper, WFA
Cubist Systematic Strategies Ph.D. Candidate Award for Outstanding Research, WFA
Mentioned in the SEC's final rule on Money Market Fund Reforms
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Open-End Fund Liquidity Risk Management Programs and Swing Pricing
Mentioned in the SEC's proposed rule on Money Market Fund Reforms
Media Mentions: Bloomberg, WSJ, Risk.net, Money, Banking, and Financial Markets
"Integrating Fragmented Networks: Interoperability in Money and Payments," with Alex Copestake, Divya Kirti, and Sole Martinez Paria
Media Mentions: Devdiscourse
"Coordination and Fragility in Liquidity Provision," with Ming Yang
Revise and Resubmit, Review of Financial Studies
Book Chapters and Invited Contributions
Finance & Development, 62(3): 18-23, September 2025, International Monetary Fund
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