New financial technologies (FinTech) have erupted around the world. Consequently, there has been a considerable increase in academic literature on FinTech over the last five years. Research tends to be scantily connected with no coherent research agenda. Significant research gaps and important questions remain. There is much work to be done before this area becomes an established academic discipline. This paper offers coherent research themes formulated through focus group meetings with policymakers and academics, and also based on a critical assessment of the literature. We outline seven key research gaps with questions that could form the basis of academic study. If these are addressed it would help this area become an established academic discipline. AbstractNew financial technologies (FinTech) have erupted around the world.Consequently, there has been a considerable increase in academic literature on FinTech over the last five years. Research tends to be scantily connected with no coherent research agenda. Significant research gaps and important questions remain. There is much work to be done before this area becomes an established academic discipline. This paper offers coherent research themes formulated through focus group meetings with policymakers and academics, and also based on a critical assessment of the literature. We outline seven key research gaps with questions that could form the basis of academic study. If these are addressed it would help this area become an established academic discipline.

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We develop a theoretical framework to study energy-biased technical change considering capital, labor and energy as inputs. The framework involves a first order condition estimation of elasticity and technical change parameters for a three factor-nested Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) function. Technical change parameters, elasticities and time derivatives of marginal products are combined to compute technical change bias. Conceptually, we introduce total bias in order to estimate the direction without requiring a direct comparison with another factor. For Chinese industries from 1990 to 2012, the optimal structure is capital and energy to be combined at the composite level and then with labor to form total output. Technical change is found to be unambiguously energy biased, it increases in every year, and the bias is predominately away from labor. The results show that Chinese industrialization was fuelled by fossil fuels and energy-intensive technologies. Nonetheless, the growth rate of energy-biased technical change decreased during the 2000s that may result from more energy efficient development.

New financial technologies (FinTech) have erupted around the world. Consequently, there has been a considerable increase in academic literature on FinTech over the last five years. Research tends to be scantily connected with no coherent research agenda. Significant research gaps and important questions remain. There is much work to be done before this area becomes an established academic discipline. This paper offers coherent research themes formulated through focus group meetings with policymakers and academics, and also based on a critical assessment of the literature. We outline seven key research gaps with questions that could form the basis of academic study. If these are addressed it would help this area become an established academic discipline.

This paper reviews the development and assesses the future of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending in China. Chinese P2P lending has expanded by a factor of 60 over the four years from 2013 and 2017. Consequently, it is now much greater, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the economy, than in any other country. The industry though has been plagued by problematic often fraudulent business models in what was, until 2015, effectively a regulatory vacuum. A strict new regulatory regime is currently being introduced. However, by its introduction, especially the requirements on capital requirements and registration, are substantially reducing the volume of P2P lending. We consider the future of P2P lending concluding it's facing substantial uncertainties.