Welcome to the Geneva Finance Research Institute (GFRI).

Prof. Harald Hau gave a presentation entiltled "Stop or go? The reform agenda in OTC derivatives markets"

at the first European Systematic Risk Board on Derivative Reform Conference

Prof. Scaillet's research paper “A specification test for nonparametric instrumental variable regression” has been accepted for publication in Annals of Economics and Statistics special issue on “Inverse Problems in Econometrics”.

Prof. Olivier Scaillet’s research paper "Jumps in High-Frequency Data: Spurious Detections, Dynamics, and News " with Adrien Treccani and Pierre Bajgrowicz is published in Management Science.

Prof. Olivier Scaillet’s research paper "ON ILL-POSEDNESS OF NONPARAMETRIC INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLE REGRESSION WITH CONVEXITY CONSTRAINTS" has been accepted for publication in The Econometrics Journal.

Prof. Martin Hoesli won the prize for the Best Paper in the Innovative/Thinking Out of the Box category for his paper titled "High Frequency House Price Indexes with Scarce Data" (co-authored with Steven C. Bourassa) presented in April 2016 at the American Real Estate Society (ARES) meetings in Denver, Colorado.

We are pleased to inform you that Prof. Gisbon Brandon’s neuro-finance paper titled "Prefrontal connections express individual differences in intrinsic resistance to trading off honesty values against economic benefits" by Azade Dogan, Yosuke Morishima, Felix Heise, Carmen Tanner, Rajna Gibson, Alexander F. Wagner, and Philippe Tobler has just been accepted for publication in Scientific Reports. Scientific Reports is an online, open access journal from the publishers of Nature. It publishes scientifically valid primary research from all areas of the natural and clinical sciences.  The impact factor of Scientific Reports in 2015 was 5.228.

Matthias Efing is winner of the ESRB prize for his job market paper. The ESRB awards an annual prize to recognise outstanding research conducted by young scholars on a topic related to the ESRB’s mission. The annual prize was established in 2014 in memory of Ieke van den Burg, who was a member of the ESRB ASC (2011-14) and of the European Parliament (1999-2009). Ms van den Burg was dedicated to the notion that finance should serve society, and this prize is administered by the ASC in that spirit.

Our online courses entered the highly selective "Top Specialization" within Coursera, entering the top 6 amongst 562 Courses devoted to Business on Coursera's platform, and the only non-US University amongst these "Gold medals".

further information about the Online Course and registration available here.

The research paper "Comments on : Nonparametric Tail Risk, Stock Returns and the Macroeconomy" by Lorenzo Camponovo, Olivier Scaillet and Fabio Trojani has been accepted for a forthcoming publication in the Journal of Financial Econometrics.

Article de l'Hebdo avec Dr. Michel Girardin

Prof. Olivier Scaillet was Invited Speaker at the 9th Annual SoFiE Conference held at City University of Hong Kong on 15-17 June 2016.

Prof. Martin Hoesli was keynote speaker at the European Real Estate Society (ERES) annual conference held at the University of Regensburg (Germany) from the 8 to 11 June 2016.

Full conference program

Please find below the link to the pictures taken during the Signing Ceremony for the Master in Wealth Management with the Swiss Finance Institute, hosting a Key Note speech by Mr. Patrick Odier, at the University of Geneva on the 1st of June 16.

http://gfri-unige.tumblr.com

On Dukascopy TV with Nicolette de Joncaire (Agefi)

Prof. Philip Valta ‘s research paper Debt Enforcement, Investment, and Risk Taking Across Countries (with Erwan Morellec, Giovanni Favara, and Enrique Schroth) has been accepted for publication at the Journal of Financial Economics.

Prof. Fabio Trojani presenting his research "From Data Science to Hedge Fund Performance" at the 5th Swiss Asset Management Day on 7 April 2016

"Variance after-effects distort risk perception in humans" by E. Payzan-LeNestour, B. W Balleine, T. Berrada & J. Pearson is forthcoming in Current Biology.

Abstract:

In many contexts, decision-making requires an accurate representation of outcome variance—otherwise known as “risk” in economics. Conventional economic theory assumes this representation to be perfect, thereby focusing on risk preferences rather than risk perception per se [1-3], but see [4]. However, humans often misrepresent their physical environment. Perhaps the most striking of such misrepresentations are the many well-known sensory after-effects, which most commonly involve visual properties, such as color, contrast, size, and motion. For example, viewing downward motion of a waterfall induces the anomalous biased experience of upward motion during subsequent viewing of static rocks to the side [5]. Given that after-effects are pervasive, occurring across a wide range of time horizons [6] and stimulus dimensions (including properties such as face perception [7,8], gender [9], and numerosity [10]), and some evidence exists that neurons show adaptation to variance in the sole visual feature of motion [11], we were interested to assess whether after-effects distort variance perception in humans. We found that perceived variance is decreased after prolonged exposure to high variance and increased after exposure to low variance within a number of different visual representations of variance. We demonstrate these after-effects occur across very different visual representations of variance, suggesting these effects are not sensory but operate at a high (cognitive) level of information processing. These results suggest, therefore, that variance constitutes an independent cognitive property and that prolonged exposure to extreme variance distorts risk perception—a fundamental challenge for economic theory and practice.

The theme of the event was “The Role of Finance in Promoting Sustainable Development.” As in previous years, the conference was a platform for sustainable finance related research relevant to academics, investment practitioners, think-tanks, policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, and civil society at large.

The conference featured a keynote presentation by Mr. Tidjane Thiam, CEO of Credit Suisse and it has generated 1200 registrations.

Press articles covering the conference:

- Geneva Summit on Sustainable Finance CS Chef fordert Umdenken, NZZ, 23.03.16 [Download]
- Très attendu hier à Genève, l’Agefi, 23.03.16 [Download]
- La finance durable a rassemblé plus de 1000 participants à Genève, Le Temps,23.03.16 [Download]
- Tidjane Thiams Mantra, Finews, 23.03.16. [Download]
- Rayonnement international et audience en nette hausse, l’Agefi 17.03.16 [Download] 
- La finance durable est érigée en vedette à Genève, Tribune de Genève, 21.03.16  [Download]

Detailed Program and Registration here