May 5 2022 (Thu), 20:00-21:15 Hong Kong Time
Standard models of financial markets assume people behave rationally. Behavioral Finance builds on this foundation by taking insights from cognitive psychology (i.e. overconfidence) to explain puzzling observations in asset prices that cannot be explained by reason.
In this seminar, Prof. Utpal Bhattacharya will give several examples from his research on Behavioral Finance: superstitious traders in Taiwan, haunted houses in Hong Kong and left-digit fixated traders in the United States.
There will be an introduction to MSGF program during the finance seminar. RSVP now!
Speaker:
Prof. Utpal Bhattacharya is currently Chair Professor of Finance at HKUST. He received his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1980, an M.B.A from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in 1982, and his Ph.D in Finance from Columbia University in 1990. He joined HKUST in 2014.
Prof. Bhattacharya's research is about the dark side of financial markets. He believes, with apologies to Thomas Jefferson, that "the price of capitalism is eternal vigilance."
Prof. Bhattacharya is the Executive Editor of Financial Management, and was an Associate Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Markets. His publications have appeared in all the top-tier finance journals (Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, The Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Business), top-tier accounting journals like The Accounting Review, and top-tier economics journals like the Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Monetary Economics.
Prof. Bhattacharya's research has been featured in full-length stories more than a hundred times in various media across the world, including six times in the Economist. He wrote a satire about the legendary fraudster Madoff in the New York Times. He has been invited to present his research in 236 institutions in 35 countries in 5 continents. He wrote a report for and served as a member of the "Task Force to Modernize Securities Regulation in Canada" in 2006. He and his report were featured in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigative story titled "Who Is Guarding Your Money" on November 23, 2008. On December 2, 2008, legislators in Ontario, Canada, discussed this report. On May 16, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. invited him to present the findings of his Journal of Finance paper that documents cross-subsidies in mutual fund families. He is now an official whistle blower.
Prof. Bhattacharya is an excellent teacher. He was nominated for the Trustee Teaching Award by Indiana University five years in a row. He won in 2004 and 2008. In 2006, Business Week recognized him as a "prominent faculty." Prof. Bhattacharya teaches in a different country every summer. He has taught at top universities in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, Turkey, UK and the USA (Chicago, Duke and MIT.)
His goal is to spread the gospel of honest finance to every corner of the globe.