Alpen Sheth, Ph.D.

Miami, Florida, United States Contact Info
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About

Partner, Head of Policy and Research at Borderless Capital. Previously, Mercy Corps…

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Experience & Education

  • Borderless Capital

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Licenses & Certifications

Volunteer Experience

  • Volunteer Teacher

    ESL Program for MIT Service Employees

    - 2 years 5 months

    Education

    The English as a Second Language (ESL) Program for MIT Facilities Department Employees on campus helps employees who are not native English speakers improve their English communication skills and advance their careers. MIT employees, faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, MIT Women's League members, retirees and friends of MIT volunteer to teach in this growing service endeavor that richly rewards tutors as well as learners.

    The program provides the following:
    - Year-round ESL…

    The English as a Second Language (ESL) Program for MIT Facilities Department Employees on campus helps employees who are not native English speakers improve their English communication skills and advance their careers. MIT employees, faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, MIT Women's League members, retirees and friends of MIT volunteer to teach in this growing service endeavor that richly rewards tutors as well as learners.

    The program provides the following:
    - Year-round ESL classes for all three working shifts at MIT.
    - Support services for employees seeking to gain U.S. citizenship.
    - Classes for job-specific licensing and certificate exams.
    - Classes and preparation for General Educational Development (GED) and Adult Diploma Program (ADP)

Publications

  • "Blockchain and Contract Theory: Modeling Smart Contracts using Insurance Markets"

    Journal of Managerial Finance

    In this paper, we model blockchain based smart contracts specifically for the insurance industry. We introduce the concept of smart contracts and further discuss the implementation of a decentralized insurance marketplace namely Etherisc, using smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain platform. We apply economic theory to demonstrate how the equilibrium shifts in this marketplace by means of reducing transaction costs in the marketplace for both the retailer and the insurance seller. Next, we…

    In this paper, we model blockchain based smart contracts specifically for the insurance industry. We introduce the concept of smart contracts and further discuss the implementation of a decentralized insurance marketplace namely Etherisc, using smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain platform. We apply economic theory to demonstrate how the equilibrium shifts in this marketplace by means of reducing transaction costs in the marketplace for both the retailer and the insurance seller. Next, we model the principal-agent relationship between the insurance provider (i.e. Etherisc or a firm creating an Etherisc insurance product) and the agents (i.e. insurance agent) in this marketplace. Using an illustrative model and simulation from Hart and Holmstrom’s theory of contracts, we demonstrate how smart contract-based marketplaces improves optimal allocation for the efficient agent (i.e. an agent who adopts smart contracts) versus an agent who sticks with traditional insurance products. We conclude with a review of major risks and policy recommendations.

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  • Who will own blockchain?: Blockchain ownership and crypto anticommons

    Good Audience (Medium)

    Blockchains are transforming property rights. What’s lies behind any digital ledger, token, asset, or contract is a package of rights — how we assign and interpret these rights is at the heart of blockchain governance.

    See publication

  • "Revisiting Development Theory: Alice H Amsden’s impact on the field"

    Cambridge Journal of Region, Space, and Economy

    Other authors
    See publication

  • How we can rebuild insurance together to make it more accessible and fair using Etherisc's blockchain technology

    Etherisc Blog

    Today, insurance doesn’t actually scale and most people don’t have access to the protection they need. Opening up insurance using smart contracts and blockchain is one of the most important solutions out there. This post shows why decentralized insurance can work based on the Etherisc protocol.

    See publication

Projects

Honors & Awards

  • Sardar Patel Dissertation Award

    UCLA Center for India and South Asia

    http://www.international.ucla.edu/cisa/patel

  • C. Lowell Harriss Dissertation Fellowship

    Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

  • Environmental Governance and Sustainability Graduate Fellow

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Lloyd and Nadine Rodwin International Travel Fellowship

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • MIT Presidential Fellowship

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • NGS Young Explorers Grant

    Committee for Research and Exploration, National Geographic Society

Languages

  • Spanish

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  • Hindi

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  • English

    -

Organizations

  • Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP)

    -

  • The American Association of Geographers (AAG)

    -

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