Privacy-preserving analytics for the securitization market: a zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology application

A zero-knowledge proof or protocol is a cryptographic technique for verifying private data without revealing it in its clear form.In this paper,we evaluate the potential for zero-knowledge distributed ledger technology to alleviate asymmetry of information in the asset-backed securitization market.To frame this inquiry,we conducted market data analyses,a review of prior literature,stakeholder interviews with investors,originators and security issuers and collaboration with blockchain engineers and researchers.We introduce a new system which could enable all market participants in the securitization lifecycle(e.g.investors,rating agencies,regulators and security issuers)to interact on a unique decentralized platform while maintaining the privacy of loan-level data,therefore providing the industry with timely analytics and performance data.Our platform is powered by zkLedger(Narula et al.2018),a zero-knowledge protocol developed by the MIT Media Lab and the first system that enables participants of a distributed ledger to run publicly verifiable analytics on masked data.

On financing restriction and improvement countermeasure in Tianjin Binhai New Area

Ever since involvement of the Binhai New Area into the national development strategy, carrying out highly effective financing promptly will play the pivotal role to implement its economic development strategy smoothly. In this paper, based on nature of regional financing, the descriptive analysis for the financing condition of the Binhai New Area is carried on. And also based on financing restraint theory and the neoclassic investment model, a real diagnosis analysis for the financing constraint condition of the Binhai New Area is studied. Finally, the existed questions in it are pointed out, and propose the correlative improvement countermeasure is put forward.

Theorizing Belt and Road construction mode from institutional and cultural perspectives

There is a gap between the great vision and high-quality targets of the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) and Western recognition of them, which challenges Chinese and Western scholars. This gap should be narrowed by conducting in-depth case studies and comparative studies at the project level. In recent years, the international academic community has paid increasing attention to Chinese outward foreign direct investment(FDI), but Belt and Road construction is much broader in scope, comprising not only FDI projects but also China-financed projects and emerging mixed projects. Our investigation, observation, and examination of the BRI projects find that compared to their Western counterparts, Chinese enterprises have less experience in doing business in other countries and often pay less attention to institutional and cultural differences between China and the host countries. Thus, revisiting the institutional and cultural turn in economic geography and employing its ideas to analyze the BRI projects and summarize their construction modes may contribute to the development of both economic geography and the BRI. This paper first briefly reviews the background and research trends of the institutional and cultural turn and then summarizes three major modes of Belt and Road construction, namely, EPC(Engineering Procurement Construction)-based projects, concession-based projects, and FDI;finally, it draws on the institutional and cultural turn to classify the BRI projects according to the two indicators of "Breadth and Depth of Territorial Embeddedness" and "Destructive Effect of a Project and/or Technology" into four types: transformative, supportive, ordinary projects and overseas industrial cooperation parks. Different institutional and cultural sensitivity can be observed for each type of project. The preliminary theorization proposed in this paper may offer a potential framework for further research on the BRI.