Conference announcement and call for papers. "New Frontiers: Technology, Finance and Regulation" for the Annual Conference of the Journal of Financial Regulation (Oxford June 2018)

I am delighted to pass along a Conference announcement and call for papers. "New Frontiers: Technology, Finance and Regulation" for the Annual Conference of the Journal of Financial Regulation (Oxford June 2018). Details follow below.

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

“New Frontiers: Technology, Finance, and Regulation”

Annual Conference of the Journal of Financial Regulation

Oxford | 29 June 2018

The editors of the Journal of Financial Regulation invite submissions for the Journal’s 2018 annual conference.

Conference website: https://academic.oup.com/jfr/pages/call_for_papers

Conference Overview

From distributed ledgers and smart contracts, to data mining, algorithmic trading, and robo-advisors—new technologies are rapidly changing the face of the financial services industry. These technologies hold out the promise of more efficient financial intermediation, deeper and more liquid financial markets, and enhanced choice for consumers of financial products. Yet many of the new financial market players and institutions that have sought to capitalize on these technologies are also the source of potentially significant and poorly understood risks. The often-praised absence of intermediation, for example, may also be one these new markets’ greatest problems—with investors left to their own devices without appropriate guidance from more sophisticated players. Such risks pose a range of challenges for policymakers responsible for promoting consumer and investor protection, ensuring the safety and soundness of financial institutions, and safeguarding the financial system from widespread panic and instability.

Against this backdrop, the editors of the Journal of Financial Regulation have selected “New Frontiers: Technology, Finance, and Regulation” as the theme of its 2018 annual conference. This conference will seek to explore a broad range of regulatory issues in relation to, inter alia, the following technological developments:

·         The use of distributed ledger technology and smart contracts in the provision of financial services

·         The emergence of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether, the associated market infrastructure, and initial coin offerings (ICOs)

·         The rise of ‘fintech’ and the increasing use of data mining techniques in the financial services industry

·         The use of robo-advisors in the provision of retail financial services

·         The emergence and growth of non-bank payment systems

·         The potential development of digital currencies by central banks

The conference organizers invite papers from scholars, policymakers, and practitioners on each of these topics, and on any other topic of relevance to the conference theme. In particular, the organizers encourage the submission of papers that examine these topics from an interdisciplinary, international and/or comparative perspective.

Submission Process

Papers should be submitted via email to Geneviève Helleringer at assistanthelleringer@gmail.com. The subject line of the email should state “JFR Conference Submission”. To facilitate blind review, names and other identifying information should be redacted from the submitted paper (but clearly identified in the message). Authors who wish to have their conference submission considered for publication in the Journal of Financial Regulation should also submit their paper via the ScholarOne link available on the journal’s website: https://academic.oup.com/jfr  
(-> submit -> Submission Site).

Deadline for submission of papers for the conference is 1 March 2018. Authors will be notified regarding whether their paper has been accepted for presentation at the conference by 30 April 2018.

The Journal of Financial Regulation is a peer-reviewed journal. Papers selected for presentation at the conference are not guaranteed to be accepted for publication in the Journal, but will be offered a fast-track peer review process. Non-acceptance of the paper for the conference does not per se exclude a potential later consideration for publication in the journal through the regular submission procedure.

About The Journal of Financial Regulation

The Journal of Financial Regulation is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to examining theoretical, policy, and practice-related issues in the area of financial regulation. The Journal seeks to publish world class scholarship which examines these issues from an interdisciplinary, international, and comparative perspective. The Journal is published by Oxford University Press. Further information about the Journal—including its contents, aims and objectives, submission process, and subscription details—is available on the Journal’s website: https://academic.oup.com/jfr. To subscribe to our emailing list, please send a message to georg.ringe@law.ox.ac.uk (subject: subscribe).

The Journal of Financial Regulation is edited by: Dan Awrey, University of Oxford; Geneviève Helleringer, Essec Business School-Paris and University of Oxford; Kate Judge, Columbia Law School; and Georg Ringe, University of Hamburg and University of Oxford.

The 2018 conference is kindly hosted by the University of Oxford, Faculty of Law.