Kumar Rishabh
RESEARCH MANAGER, AI & THE DIGITAL ECONOMY LAB
kumar.rishabh@unil.ch · UPDATED OCTOBER 2026 · FULL CV (PDF) ↗
Publications and working papers are on the Research page, courses and thesis supervision on the Teaching page, and datasets on the Data page. For my full CV, see the PDF version.
Research Interests
RESEARCH AI and digital transformation; data and innovation; platform business models; AI supply chains.
METHODS Big data analytics, applied machine learning, causal inference and economic modelling.
Academic and Policy Appointments
HEC Lausanne, University of Lausanne
Research Manager, AI & the Digital Economy Lab NOV 2022 – SEP 2025; APR 2026 – PRESENT
University of Basel
Research Associate and Lecturer, Faculty of Business and Economics OCT 2020 – PRESENT
Bank for International Settlements
Technical Advisor, Innovation and Digital Economy Team, Monetary and Economic Department OCT 2025 – PRESENT
Full-time to March 2026; part-time since April 2026.
University of Basel
Research Assistant, Faculty of Business and Economics OCT 2015 – SEP 2020
Reserve Bank of India
Economist, Research Department, Mumbai DEC 2010 – OCT 2020
Active service to September 2014; doctoral study leave from October 2014 until formal resignation in October 2020.
Consulting and Industry Experience
ICRIER
Commissioned research on India’s position in AI production ONGOING
UBS
Consulting mandate AUG 2025 – JUL 2026
Advised on AT1 instrument design and bank capital requirements.
Co-authored a UBS-commissioned report with Yvan Lengwiler and Rolf Watter, published in GesKR (2026).
A Swiss cantonal bank
Consulting mandate 2023
Advised on payment-data signals for credit-quality assessment.
Towers Watson (now Willis Towers Watson)
Junior Economist, Delhi NCR, India JUN 2009 – NOV 2010
Risk consulting for pension funds and insurance funds.
Mswipe
Industry research partnership, India
Research collaboration on open banking and lending through payment platforms, drawing on over 99 million payment transactions.
Studies published in the Journal of Financial Intermediation and forthcoming in the Review of Finance.
Education
University of Basel
PhD in Applied Economics 2020
Summa cum laude. Advisors: Yvan Lengwiler and Stephen G. Cecchetti.
NYU Stern School of Business
Visiting Research Scholar 2018
Study Center Gerzensee
Doctoral coursework 2016
Jawaharlal Nehru University
MA in Economics 2009
Ramjas College, University of Delhi
BA (Honors) in Economics 2007
Research Funding and Fellowships
2025 WWZ Forum Grant, WWZ Förderverein, with Yvan Lengwiler.
2024 Armasuisse Grant, Swiss Federal Office for Defence Procurement, with Roxana Mihet.
2022 NSE–NYU Stern Initiative Grant, National Stock Exchange of India and NYU Stern.
2022 FIT IN Initiative Grant, Toulouse School of Economics.
2020–21 WWZ Project Grant, WWZ Förderverein. Research on payment footprints in fintech lending.
2020–21 Johann-Jakob Speiser Scholarship, Speiser-Bär Foundation. Research visit to the University of California, Santa Cruz.
2018 Doc.Mobility Fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation. Six-month research visit to New York University (February–July 2018).
2014–15 PhD Fellowship, University of Basel. Support for first-year doctoral coursework.
Awards
2025 Runner-up, Frankfurt School Philipp Sandner Award in Digital Finance Research.
2021 Young Winner Young Economist Award, Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics.
2018 Finalist, Louis-André Gérard-Varet Prize, Association of Southern European Economic Theorists.
Academic Service
REFEREEING Journal of Financial Economics; International Economic Review; Journal of Banking and Finance; Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics.
EXPERT PANEL Forecasting Research Institute’s Longitudinal Expert AI Panel (2025); forecasts of AI capabilities, adoption and societal outcomes.
Research Impact and Media Coverage
AI SUPPLY CHAINS AND INVESTMENT
Our AI-firm dataset is used in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2026; the supply-chain mapping is used in EY’s European Economic Outlook.
Concentration findings cited by the OECD and ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane; chart-based coverage in Bloomberg Odd Lots and the Hindustan Times.
AI investment chart used in MUFG’s capital-markets research; classification and valuation chart used in a European Parliament Monetary Dialogue study; findings discussed in UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report 2026.
Coverage in fDi Intelligence (Financial Times) on AI investment home bias and South Korea’s AI industry, and in Yonhap Infomax. Circular AI financing findings covered by the Financial Times and FT Alphaville.
AI AND FIRM PERFORMANCE
PwC’s The Rising Value of Data draws on our findings on AI–data complementarity, information overload and market concentration.
AI IN SUPERVISION
LLM supervisory-screening research covered by The Banker and Regulation Asia.
SWISS BANK CAPITAL REFORM
AT1 recommendations informed a reform proposal to the Council of States’ WAK-S committee, documented in an expert assessment published by the Federal Department of Finance; the study was covered by Bloomberg.
Selected Talks and Conferences
INVITED TALKS, 2026 FINMA; Central Bank of Sri Lanka; UNCTAD; NIPFP, New Delhi; Financial Stability Institute; FSI–SEACEN Meeting of Directors of Supervision.
CONFERENCES American Finance Association (2023, 2025); RCFS Winter Conference (2025); CEPR–ECB–Bocconi Conference on the Future of Payments (2025); EEA–ESEM (2023, 2026).
Skills
PROGRAMMING Python, SQL, Git, Stata and MATLAB.
AI WORKFLOWS Text analysis, API-based LLM classification, agentic workflows and reproducible data pipelines.
LANGUAGES English (C2), Hindi (native), German (B1).