Descriptif
The financial industry was until recently a very concentrated sector. This is becoming less and less true as a wave of innovations greatly lowers the barriers to entry and intensifies the degree of competition among providers of financial services. Disruptive technologies are being implemented at an increasing pace, leading to major changes in the realms of payments, lending and borrowing, insurance, wealth management, venture capital.
To understand this revolution, one needs to have a good grasp of technological innovations as well as of the economics of the financial sector. This course will introduce students to both dimensions, allowing them to identify how financial services can be improved with new approaches.
The course will put a strong emphasis on the blockchain protocol because of its disruptive potential, hopefully preparing the audience for the next wave of innovations. We will adopt a hands-on approach with the objective of enabling students to monitor transactions over Bitcoin’s blockchain
Reading list:
- Acemoglu, Daron and Simon Johnson. (2007). “Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol 115(6), pp. 925-985.
- Hoyt Bleakley (2010). “Malaria Eradication in the Americas: A Retrospective Analysis of Childhood Exposure.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 2, pp.1-45.
- Das Jishnu and Jeffrey Hammer (2014) "Quality of Primary Care in Low-Income Countries: Facts and Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Vol. 6 pp. 525-553.
- Björkman Martina and Jakob Svensson (2009) “Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 124(2) pp.735–769.
Objectifs pédagogiques
On completion of this course, students should understand:
• The ongoing trends in the Fintech industry and their technological underpinnings;
• How cryptographic functions make it possible to secure transactions over a public network;
• Why the blockchain technology can replace third-party certification;
• What are “smart contracts.”
Diplôme(s) concerné(s)
Parcours de rattachement
- Bachelor en sciences - S6 - Double spécialité Mathématiques et Économie
- Bachelor en sciences - S6 - Double spécialité Mathématiques et Économie - Mineure Biologie (BS-S6-ME)
- Bachelor en sciences - S6 - Double spécialité Mathématiques et Économie - Mineure Chimie
Objectifs de développement durable
ODD14 Vie aquatique, ODD 9 Industrie, Innovation et Infrastructure, ODD 8 Travail décent et croissance économique, ODD 7 Energie propre et d’un coût abordable, ODD 3 Bonne santé et bien-être, ODD 1 Pas de pauvreté.Pour les étudiants du diplôme Bachelor of Science de l'Ecole polytechnique
Vous devez avoir validé l'équation suivante : UE ECO201
Format des notes
Numérique sur 20Littérale/grade américainPour les étudiants du diplôme Programmes d'échange internationaux
Pour les étudiants du diplôme Bachelor of Science de l'Ecole polytechnique
Le rattrapage est autorisé (Note de rattrapage conservée écrêtée à une note seuil de 11)- Crédits ECTS acquis : 2 ECTS
Le coefficient de l'UE est : 2
La note obtenue rentre dans le calcul de votre GPA.
Programme détaillé
1. Introduction to Banking, Fintech and Payment Systems.
2. Basics of Cryptography: Public/private keys, Hash functions…
3. Decentralization under “Nakamoto” consensus: Byzantine general’s problem,
transactions, mining, Proof-of-work.
4. Using Bitcoin core: How to become a node in Bitcoin’s network, structure of transactions.
5. Smart Contracts: Algorithmic Decision making, Programing self-executing contracts in
Bitcoin script, Ethereum protocol, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO).
6. Decentralized Finance