Each year, the CFA Institute Research and Policy Center publishes work that helps investment professionals navigate structural change, emerging risks and innovation in global markets. This year’s most popular pieces reflect that mission. From the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in asset management to capital formation in Africa, tokenization, pensions and the ethics of private markets, these publications provide practical insight for leaders shaping investment decisions in a rapidly evolving landscape. Below you will find a selection of the top publications of the Scientific Research and Policy Center from 2025.
Edited by Joseph Simonian, PhDthis book from CFA Institute Research Foundation and CFA Institute Research and Policy Center shows how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming asset management. Discover how AI and machine learning (ML) are being applied to portfolio design, risk oversight, and investment decision-making, with insights from leading practitioners and experts at the CFA Institute.
The CFA Institute Research and Policy Center convened thought leaders and investment stars to unpack the big ideas around achieving net zero. These Voices of Influence provide practical guidance for investors, asset managers, investment professionals and regulators. More than 50 authors from the United States, Europe and Asia participated in 16 research projects. The initiative won the 2025 Silver Award for Excellence in Sustainable Development Goals Implementation from the Society for Scholarly Publishing.
This report, edited by Olivier Fines, CFA And Phoebe Chanprovides a detailed assessment of barriers to capital formation in eleven sub-Saharan jurisdictions. It highlights how private markets, policy reforms, fintech innovation and public-private partnerships can increase investment, strengthen infrastructure financing and support economic resilience. The national level contributors, many of whom are CFA charterholders, provide deep local expertise that anchors the analysis in practical reality.
Transparent, explainable AI is essential in finance, not only for regulatory compliance, but also for institutional trust, ethical standards and effective risk management, as shown in this report from Cheryll-Ann Wilson, PhD, CFAexplains. While automated tools can help, the report underlines that human oversight and strong organizational alignment remain indispensable.
Joseph Simonian, PhDaddresses the ethical concerns and risks of AI washing (AIW) in the financial world, and provides crucial questions for stakeholders to assess managers’ AI claims and ensure transparency, integrity and the real application of AI in investment strategies. The report explores what AIW is, why companies are engaging in it and how it affects customers and the broader development of AI. It also provides guidance for asset owners on how to recognize both genuine AI use and inflated claims in the marketplace.
This report from Mercer and the CFA Institute compares retirement income systems worldwide using more than 50 indicators. It assesses global pension systems and recommends reforms to improve outcomes and participant confidence in an era of aging populations and increasing government intervention.
In part one of this report Urav Soni, Olivier Boetes, CFA, And Jinming Sun, CFAexplores the transformative impact of tokenization on traditional assets. It is an introduction to tokenization where we look at the technical process: what tokenization is, how it works, its value proposition and its current limitations. We also take into account the impact this process can have on different asset classes. In part two, Giovanni Bandi, PhD, Olivier Boetes, CFA, And Urav Soni explore the regulatory changes needed to grow tokenization responsibly while ensuring investor protection and market integrity. The report analyzes global regulatory regimes, international standards and the need for legal clarity.
This first of three modules of an updated guide from the CFA Institute Research Foundation – ETF Features and Evolving Landscape, written by Joanne M. Hill, PhD, Elisabeth Kashner, CFA, And Dave Nadig—explores the features, benefits, mechanics, and history of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). It describes the factors behind the exponential growth of ETFs and evaluates the US ETF landscape.
This report from Stephen Deane, CFA, and Ken Robinson, CFA, CIPM, examines how continuation funds provide liquidity in sluggish private markets, examining their growth, benefits and the conflicts of interest they present. The report provides an unbiased insight into what follow-on funds are, what has driven their dramatic growth, and what they tell us about private markets. It also explains both the increased conflicts of interest that arise in follow-on funds and the mechanisms to address them.
Traditional investment wisdom holds that stocks and bonds tend to move in opposite directions, providing investors with natural hedges within balanced portfolios. But this long-standing negative correlation shows signs of reversing. In this CFA Institute Research Foundation research assignment, Friedrich Baumann, Abdolreza NazimiAnd Frank J. Fabozzi, CFAIn this research assignment, discuss how machine learning can identify the macroeconomic drivers of the changing correlation between stocks and bonds, providing actionable insights for asset allocation and risk management.
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