Finance Research

Announcing the Winners of the Marshall Blume Prizes in Financial Research

Three people smile for a group photo holding prize boxes The winners of the Marshall Blume Prizes for 2025, from left to right: Courtney Wiegand, Parinitha Sastry, and Lu Liu. Photo taken by Luke Taylor. The Marshall Blume Prizes in Financial Research are awarded annually by the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research to the best unpublished working papers…Read More

Sylvain Catherine and Lu Liu Win Prestigious Research Prizes

Two people's headshots side by side with text in white font that reads "Sylvain Catherine and Lu Liu Win American Finance Association First Prizes" Two members of Wharton’s finance faculty — Sylvain Catherine and Lu Liu — were named among this year’s winners of the American Finance Association’s First Prizes, awarded for outstanding research published in the Journal of Finance, one of the field’s most prestigious publications. Both papers were previously recognized with Marshall Blume Prizes in Financial Research, awarded annually…Read More

Social Security and Measuring Wealth Inequality

A headshot of a person smiling before a grey background. A caption reads "Discoveries: Sylvain Catherine" Professor Sylvain Catherine and his co-authors Max Miller and Natasha Sarin were named winners of the Dimensional Fund Advisors First Prize from the American Finance Association for their paper, “Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality,” published in the Journal of Finance. The award places Professor Catherine among a select…Read More

Max Harris on Stablecoins After the GENIUS Act

A panel at the Wharton Future of Finance Forum addresses the audience between two blue Wharton pop up banners "We are only at the beginning of the stablecoin story." – Max Harris As digital assets become integrated into mainstream finance, stablecoins have moved from the periphery to the center of policy conversations. At the 2026 Wharton Future of Finance Forum, a panel titled “Stablecoins After the GENIUS Act” brought…Read More

The “Pecking Order” of Firm Growth

A person smiles toward the viewer in a sunlit room. Are growing companies better off acting on new, innovative ideas — or scaling their existing ones? In “Capital, Ideas, and the Costs of Financial Frictions,” Professor Thomas Winberry explores how firms balance investment in current operations with the pursuit of future innovations. This paper earned the 2024 Marshall Blume Prize…Read More

The Impact of “Mortgage Lock-In” on Homebuyers

Professor Lu Liu headshot During the pandemic, historically low interest rates offered a unique opportunity for prospective homeowners. However, research by Lu Liu, assistant professor of finance at Wharton and Julia Fonseca of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, suggests that locking in those low rates may have had unintended consequences. This paper won the Rodney…Read More

A Bite of Finance: The Latest from Wharton

A promotional graphic titled "A Bite of Finance: The Latest from Wharton," featuring information about a paper on measuring intermediaries'' risk-bearing capacity. It includes authors'' names, a quote, and options to read more or contact the author, set This Bite of Finance newsletter highlights recent ground-breaking research by Wharton’s finance faculty and papers supported by Finance at Wharton. In this July 2024 issue: intermediary elasticity; the impact of perceived environmental health risk on property values and neighborhood composition; how households are exposed to interest rate risk; factors that…Read More