Ilaf Elard

Ilaf Elard is an Associate Professor of Practice in Economics at NYU Shanghai and a Core Faculty Member of the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. His research covers fintech, blockchain, AI and the digital economy, and international macro-finance. Before joining NYU Shanghai, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and, before coming to China, a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Brown University and a visiting researcher at the Bank of England. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford.

Professor Elard’s teaching has been recognized by Shanghai’s Municipal Education Commission, which named his Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and Money course one of the “2022 First-Class Undergraduate Courses of Shanghai Higher Education Institutions.” The course is now also a MOOC, "Let’s Talk About Money: Basics to Blockchains", an official NYU Shanghai Mini Course.

His fintech research, published in the Journal of Banking & Finance, was cited in 2020 rulemakings by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and in the records of U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearings in 2018 and 2020, besides also informing the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) policy. At the Frontiers in Business Research in China Conference and Second Toronto FinTech Conference, his research work won best research paper awards.

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