时间：2026年4月14日周二 下午3点30 至 5点

Tuesday April 14, 15:30-17:00 pm Beijing time 

(Tuesday April 14, 9:30-11:00 am Paris time)

地点/Venue：Zoom会议（会议号: 813 0969 5445  密码: 676067）

主讲人/Speaker:  Boris Vallée

主持人/Host：胡佳胤 Jiayin Hu

Title: Fintech to the (Worker) Rescue: Earned Wage Access, Financial Health and Employee Retention

Abstract: We study the adoption and welfare implications of earned wage access (EWA) – an innovative financial product increasingly offered by firms as an employee benefit – using novel administrative and survey data from a Mexican FinTech provider. We document substantial uptake, with usage concentrated near the end of the pay cycle. Adoption is associated with higher retention among lower-rank workers, consistent with welfare gains for financially constrained employees. Survey evidence points to liquidity insurance and consumption smoothing as key drivers of demand. To rationalize these findings, we develop a simple framework incorporating these motives alongside present bias. The model predicts that EWA can generate meaningful welfare gains for workers, particularly those with present-biased preferences, and characterizes the conditions under which adoption is most beneficial.

主讲人简介：

Boris Vallée is an Associate Professor (with tenure) in the Finance Area of INSEAD.

Professor Vallée’s research traces the motives behind and the effects of financial innovation in recent decades, investigates solutions offered by climate and biodiversity finance, and explores the political economy of finance. He pursues these lines of inquiry through empirical studies of corporate finance, household finance, public finance, and financial institutions, developing novel data sets and measures. He is also actively contributing to the Labor and Finance literature. His work has been cited by The Economist, the Financial Times, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe. He teaches Advanced Applied Corporate Finance (AACF) and Real Estate Investing (REI) in the MBA and Executive Master in Finance curriculum. He is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Corporate Finance, a member of the scientific comittee of the Autorites des Marches Financiers (AMF), and a fellow of the Luohan Academy.

Prior to joining INSEAD, Boris was the inaugural Torstein Hagen Associate Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School, where he spent more than a decade as a faculty and taught the Finance II and Real Property courses. He holds a Ph.D. in finance and a M.Sc. in management, both from HEC Paris, and is a CFA Charterholder. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Professor Vallée was an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in London.