Igor Evstigneev, Thorsten Hens, Mohammad Javad Vanaei, Evolutionary Finance: A model with endogenous asset payoffs, Journal of Bioeconomics, Vol. forthcoming, 2023. (Journal Article)

Evolutionary Finance (EF) explores financial markets as evolving biological systems. Investors pursuing diverse investment strategies compete for the market capital. Some "survive" and some "become extinct". A central goal is to identify evolutionary stable (in one sense or another) investment strategies. The problem is analyzed in a framework combining stochastic dynamics and evolutionary game theory. Most of the models currently considered in EF assume that asset payo¤s are exogenous and depend only on the underlying stochastic process of states of the world. The present work develops a model where the payo¤s are endogenous: they depend on the share of total market wealth invested in the asset. |
|
Sean Siegenthaler, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2023. (Bachelor's Thesis)
 
In 2021 more than half of U.S. IPOs were SPACs, and more than a third of the companies that went public had chosen a de-SPAC transaction over a traditional IPO. However, the hot Wall Street trend ended soon after its emergence. Investors burnt their fingers, and sponsors walked away with huge profits. The SEC intervened with restrictive regulatory scrutiny to protect the investors. However, increasing the liability, improving disclosure, and ultimately enhancing the SPAC’s structure will not eliminate the risk of SPACs as an investment vehicle. |
|
Nassim Wesselmann , Die Rolle von Framing Contests für Bail-Out Entscheidungen in der Covid-19-Krise: Der Fall Lufthansa in Deutschland, Österreich und Schweiz, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2023. (Bachelor's Thesis)

|
|
Loris Di Pietro, Basel III: Liquid Asset Holdings in Swiss Cantonal Banks, University of Zurich, Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics, 2023. (Bachelor's Thesis)

|
|
Stefan Schembera, Patrick Haack, Andreas Scherer, From compliance to progress: A sensemaking perspective on the governance of corruption, Organization Science, Vol. 34 (3), 2023. (Journal Article)
 
The governance of corruption is increasingly important in a global business environment involving ever more frequent transactions across diverse institutional contexts. Previous scholarship has theorized a fundamental tension between the enforcement of organizational compliance and the achievement of social ends, finding that efforts to remedy policy-practice decoupling in the governance of corruption and other complex global issues can exacerbate means-ends decoupling. However, these studies have tended to apply a rather static lens to a highly evaluative and processual phenomenon, meaning we still lack in-depth understanding of the dynamics underlying the interactive communicative processes of sensemaking and negotiation involved in working out the problems of both means-ends and policy-practice decoupling across different institutional contexts. To address this gap, we present a longitudinal qualitative study of the governance of corruption that identifies the emergence of locally contingent and open-ended sensemaking processes arising from and surrounding problems of decoupling. Specifically, we identify four key sensemaking mechanisms across different contexts and periods that ultimately shifted the focus of the actors away from a compliance-based approach toward a new shared understanding of progress as achievement, i.e., the mechanisms of localized theorizing, leveling, recalibrating, and public criticizing. Based on these findings, we develop a model to explain the role of sensemaking in the governance of corruption and the dynamics of decoupling. |
|
Pedro Miguel Sánchez Sánchez, Alberto Huertas Celdran, Gerome Bovet, Gregorio Martínez Pérez, Burkhard Stiller, SpecForce: A Framework to Secure IoT Spectrum Sensors in the Internet of Battlefield Things, IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 61 (5), 2023. (Journal Article)
 
The battlefield has evolved into a mobile and dynamic scenario where soldiers and heterogeneous military equipment exchange information in real-time and wirelessly. This fact brings to reality the Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT). Wireless communications are key enablers for the IoBT, and their management is critical due to the spectrum scarcity and the increasing number of IoBT devices. In this sense, IoBT spectrum sensors are deployed on the battlefield to monitor the frequency spectrum, transmit over unoccupied bands, intercept enemy transmissions, or decode valuable information. However, IoBT spectrum sensors are vulnerable to heterogeneous cyber-attacks, and their accurate detection is an open challenge in the literature. Thus, this paper presents SpecForce, a security framework for IoBT spectrum sensors based on device behavioral fingerprinting and ML/DL techniques. SpecForce considers heterogeneous data sources to detect the most dangerous and recent cyber-attacks affecting IoBT spectrum sensors, such as impersonation, malware, and spectrum sensing data falsification attacks. To evaluate the SpecForce detection performance, it has been deployed on 25 real spectrum sensors, and results show almost perfect detection for the three cyber-attack families previously mentioned. |
|
Markus Leippold, Thus spoke GPT-3: Interviewing a large-language model on climate finance, Finance Research Letters, Vol. 53, 2023. (Journal Article)

This paper is an interview with a Large Language Model (LLM), namely GPT-3, on the issues of climate change. The interview should give some insights into the current capabilities of these large models which are deep neural networks with generally more than 100 billion parameters. In particular, it shows how eloquent and convincing the answers of such LLMs can be. However, it should be noted that LLMs can suffer from hallucination and their responses may not be grounded on facts. These deficiencies offer an interesting avenue for future research. |
|
Florian Heeb, Julian Kölbel, Falko Paetzold, Stefan Zeisberger, Do Investors Care about Impact?, The Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 36 (5), 2023. (Journal Article)

We assess how investors’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for sustainable investments responds to the social impact of those investments, using a framed field experiment. While investors have a substantial WTP for sustainable investments, they do not pay significantly more for more impact. This also holds for dedicated impact investors. When investors compare several sustainable investments, their WTP responds to relative, but not to absolute, levels of impact. Regardless of investments' impact, investors experience positive emotions when choosing sustainable investments. Our findings suggest that the WTP for sustainable investments is primarily driven by an emotional, rather than a calculative, valuation of impact. |
|
Diana Bonfim, Geraldo Cerqueiro, Hans Degryse, Steven Ongena, On-Site Inspecting Zombie Lending, Management Science, Vol. 69 (5), 2023. (Journal Article)
 
"Zombie lending" remains a widespread practice by banks around the world. In this paper, we exploit a series of large-scale on-site inspections made on the credit portfolios of several Portuguese banks to investigate how these inspections affect banks’ future lending decisions. We find that an inspected bank becomes 20% less likely to refinance zombie firms, immediately spurring their default. Overall, banks seemingly reduce zombie lending because the incentives to hold these loans disappear once they are forced to recognize losses. |
|
Steven Ongena, Bankers and Climate, In: ZEW Conference on Ageing and Sustainable Finance. 2023. (Conference Presentation)

|
|
Redaktion, Alexander Wagner, Shortseller mit Nutzen für den Aktienmarkt? Leerverkäufer Hindenburg Research, Fraser Perring & Co., In: finanzen.ch, 23 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

Shortseller haben unter Firmenlenkern oft keinen sehr guten Ruf - und auch viele Anleger dürften ihnen gegenüber eher negativ eingestellt sein. Denn die Leerverkäufer verdienen ihr Geld mit der Wette auf fallende Aktienkurse und sorgen mitunter selbst dafür, dass sich der Anteilsschein eines Unternehmens in die gewünschte Richtung bewegt. Doch laut Experten erfüllen sie mit ihrem Vorgehen eine wichtige Funktion am Markt. |
|
Anton Fedosov, Liudmila Zavolokina, Sina Krumhard, Elaine May Huang, “This Could Be The Day I Die”: Unpacking Interpersonal and Systems Trust in a Local Sharing Economy Community, In: CHI '23: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2023-04-23. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)

The rapid development of the “sharing economy” enables the effective and efficient coordination, acquisition, distribution, and sharing of many kinds of different resources. Beyond the well-known sharing economy services such as Airbnb and Uber, an increasing number of local sharing initiatives have established online platforms and services to facilitate access to the shared resources within their local communities. With the automation and complexity of digital tools and platforms, and the specific challenges of online sharing communities, users’ trust and reliance become increasingly critical for successful use and adoption. In our qualitative study in collaboration with two industry partners (a local sharing community and a large infrastructure provider in Switzerland), we unpack various perspectives of interpersonal trust in the community and the systems trust of the supporting technologies. On this basis, we elicited a set of design opportunities for future platforms in the context of sharing economy. |
|
Arthur Carvalho, Liudmila Zavolokina, Suman Bhunia, Monu Chaudhary, Nitharsan Yoganathan, Promoting Inclusiveness and Fairness through NFTs: The Case of Student-Athletes and NILs, In: CHI '23: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2023-04-23. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
 
Recent regulatory changes have enabled NCAA student-athletes to proft from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), departing from previous policies requiring those athletes to maintain their amateur status. However, despite the changes, it is unlikely that all the approximately 500,000 NCAA student-athletes will proft from NIL contracts. Within this context, we study how to design a fair and inclusive solution that may help all student-athletes se- cure NIL fnancial resources. Following a design science approach, we defne design requirements after interviewing student-athletes. Subsequently, we derive three design principles: inclusiveness, fairness, and transparency. Thereafter, we suggest a blockchain-based artifact that satisfes all design principles. Our idea lies in designing collectibles as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that pay diferent roy- alties whenever a transaction (purchase or exchange) happens in diferent markets (primary or secondary). Finally, we evaluate our solution by discussing its features with current student-athletes. |
|
Mark Buchanan, Stefano Battiston, Science strengthened banks — but how long will stability last? , In: Nature, 19 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

|
|
Chris Alderson, Stefano Battiston, Science strengthened banks - but how long will stability last?, In: Quick Telecast, 19 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

|
|
Christian Rappaz, Marc Chesney, Marc Chesney: «La finance casino nous met tous en danger», In: L'illustré, 18 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

Professeur de finances mathématiques à l’Université de Zurich et auteur du livre «La crise permanente», l’économiste Marc Chesney ne fait pas vraiment confiance aux banques systémiques. La faute, selon lui, à la Finma, à la BNS et à la majorité de l’élite politique qui, après l’effondrement d’UBS en 2008, ont pudiquement fermé les yeux sur les dérives des grandes banques. |
|
Redaktion, Alexander Wagner, Minimierung von Klimarisiken vs. Portfoliodiversifikation, In: Absolut Research, 18 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

|
|
Suzanne Tolmeijer, Vicky Arpatzoglou, Luca Rossetto, Abraham Bernstein, Trolleys, crashes, and perception—a survey on how current autonomous vehicles debates invoke problematic expectations, AI and Ethics, 2023. (Journal Article)
 
Ongoing debates about ethical guidelines for autonomous vehicles mostly focus on variations of the ‘Trolley Problem’. Using variations of this ethical dilemma in preference surveys, possible implications for autonomous vehicles policy are discussed. In this work, we argue that the lack of realism in such scenarios leads to limited practical insights. We run an ethical preference survey for autonomous vehicles by including more realistic features, such as time pressure and a non-binary decision option. Our results indicate that such changes lead to different outcomes, calling into question how the current outcomes can be generalized. Additionally, we investigate the framing effects of the capabilities of autonomous vehicles and indicate that ongoing debates need to set realistic expectations on autonomous vehicle challenges. Based on our results, we call upon the field to re-frame the current debate towards more realistic discussions beyond the Trolley Problem and focus on which autonomous vehicle behavior is considered not to be acceptable, since a consensus on what the right solution is, is not reachable.
|
|
Redaktion, Alexander Wagner, Hindenburg Research, Fraser Perring & Co.: Haben Shortseller einen Nutzen für den Aktienmarkt?, In: Head Topics, 14 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

Shortseller haben unter Firmenlenkern oft keinen sehr guten Ruf - und auch viele Anleger dürften ihnen gegenüber eher negativ eingestellt sein. Denn die Leerverkäufer verdienen ihr Geld mit der Wette auf fallende Aktienkurse und sorgen mitunter selbst dafür, dass sich der Anteilsschein eines Unternehmens in die gewünschte Richtung bewegt. Doch laut Experten erfüllen sie mit ihrem Vorgehen eine wichtige Funktion am Markt. Leerverkäufer mit wichtiger korrigierender Funktion für den Aktienmarkt Denn Experten sind sich einig, dass Shortseller an der Börse als wichtiges Korrektiv dienen. |
|
Redaktion, Alexander Wagner, Hindenburg Research, Fraser Perring & Co.: Haben Shortseller einen Nutzen für den Aktienmarkt?, In: finanzen.net, 14 April 2023. (Media Coverage)

Shortseller haben unter Firmenlenkern oft keinen sehr guten Ruf - und auch viele Anleger dürften ihnen gegenüber eher negativ eingestellt sein. Denn die Leerverkäufer verdienen ihr Geld mit der Wette auf fallende Aktienkurse und sorgen mitunter selbst dafür, dass sich der Anteilsschein eines Unternehmens in die gewünschte Richtung bewegt. Doch laut Experten erfüllen sie mit ihrem Vorgehen eine wichtige Funktion am Markt. |
|