Research

Publications, reports, working papers, and current research by Mark Jani.

My research examines FinTech ecosystem development, institutional quality, and SME financial performance, using panel econometrics and composite index construction. Current work applies the same empirical toolkit to AI — capability evaluations and the measurement of AI’s economic impact.

Reports

• The Future of Global Fintech: From Rapid Expansion to Sustainable Growth (2nd Edition), Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance & World Economic Forum, 2025. Named author. Contributed survey design and data collection through interviews with C-level executives, data analysis, and co-wrote the executive summary, concluding remarks, and several chapters, including on artificial intelligence in finance.

Working papers

• Unpacking Fintech’s Influence on UK SMEs: A Comprehensive Analysis of Performance, Culture, and Governance Dynamics (with Rami Salem, Alina Ileana Petrescu, and Philip Whyman). Dynamic panel analysis of 1,797 firm-year observations (2013–2022) using two-step GMM, integrating Institutional Theory, the Resource-Based View, and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Under review. [SSRN]

Thesis

• The Impact of FinTech Firms on SME Performance in High-Income OECD Countries, PhD thesis, University of Central Lancashire, 2026. Introduces the FinTech Infrastructure Score, a novel composite measure of national fintech infrastructure, and estimates its relationship with SME financial performance using panel fixed-effects models across five European countries. Viva passed April 2026.

In preparation

Four thesis-derived papers being prepared for journal submission:

• FinTech lending density and SME return on equity: panel evidence from high-income OECD countries
• Beyond Universal Benefits: FinTech Enabling Environments and Conditional SME Performance in European Economies
• The Flexibility-Intensive Framework: an empirical examination of FinTech adoption pathways in SME financing
• COVID-19 as an amplifier: FinTech infrastructure and resilience in European SME financial performance

In progress

• AI capability evaluations and the economics of AI — empirical work on how frontier-model evaluation results are produced and used, and on measuring AI’s economic impact. Builds on BlueDot Impact’s Technical AI Safety programme.
• Interactive presentation of the PhD thesis — a scrollytelling visual summary of the thesis findings for non-specialist readers.

Writing

Shorter analyses and working notes are on the Writing page, with an RSS feed.