"The Future of Finance" - EDHEC Speaker Series

EDHEC SPEAKER SERIES
“LE FUTUR DE LA FINANCE”

 

Le "vert est-il le nouveau noir" en matière de finance ? Comment le secteur financier pourrait-il faire face au changement climatique, aux retraites et à d'autres enjeux économiques clés dans les années à venir ? La digitalisation et l'intelligence artificielle sont-elles vraiment la prochaine frontière de l'investissement ?

L'EDHEC Business School a lancé une nouvelle série de conférences mensuelles en ligne sur "Le futur de la finance". L'objectif est d'aborder les avancées les plus récentes dans l'industrie financière et de discuter de la façon dont la finance peut être un outil puissant pour relever les principaux défis économiques et sociaux. Pour ce faire, cette série réunit tout au long de l'année des experts de renommée internationale et des universitaires reflétant la culture de recherche et l'engagement intellectuel de l'EDHEC Business School #makeanimpact. Le public visé est celui des étudiants en finance de l'EDHEC Business School, des alumni de l'EDHEC, des membres de la communauté élargie de l'EDHEC et des invités.

Season 2 - EDHEC online Speaker Series “The Future of Finance”

 

Past Speakers

 

Topic    Impact Investing    

Date     Tuesday May 2nd 

Time     6:00.pm-07:00.pm Paris Time

Join us for a talk by Professor Ayako Yasuda, a leading expert in finance and impact investing and Professor of Finance at University of California, Davis. Discover the distinct features of impact investing, how investors in impact VC funds exhibit non-pecuniary preferences, and the scalability of impact investing beyond private markets.

Professor Yasuda will also discuss the limitations of current sustainable mutual funds/ETFs and the need for clarity in labeling. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insights on creating positive social and environmental change through impactful investments.

Speaker

 

 

Ayako Yasuda

Professor of Finance                                           

University of California, Davis

Graduate School of Management

View Paper 1                           View Paper 2                             View Presentation

 

MODERATORS

Enrique Schroth,

Professor of Finance

EDHEC Business School

 

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes

EDHEC Business School

 

Topic    Do corporations need a purpose?       

Date     Tuesday April 18th 

Time     6:00.pm-07:00.pm Paris Time

Purpose is the corporate buzzword of today, with politicians, the public, and even shareholders calling on businesses to serve wider society. But purpose is also controversial. Milton Friedman famously wrote that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”, and this statement is far more nuanced than often portrayed – the only way to increase profits, at least in the long-term, is for a company to invest in customers, employees, and communities.

Is it sufficient for a company to focus on long-term profits, or does it need a purpose beyond even long-term profits? We will hear from Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School and author of “Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit”, recently translated into French.

Speaker

 

 

 

Alex Edmans

Professor of Finance, non-executive director, author, TED speaker                                               

London Business School (LBS)

MODERATORS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hamid BOUSTANIFAR 

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

 

Laurent DEVILLE

Professor of Finance

Academic Director - Masters in Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

Topic    Estimating Corporate Carbon Emissions with Machine Learning    

Date     Tuesday April 4th 

Time     6:00.pm-07:00.pm Paris Time

As of 2022, greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions reporting and auditing are not yet compulsory for all companies. We propose a machine learning-based model to estimate scope 1 and scope 2 GHG emissions of companies not yet reporting them.

The model is designed to be transparent, is able to estimate GHG emissions for a large universe of companies and shows good out-of-sample performance. Unlike mainstream approaches, which tend to construct one model for each industry, we construct one single global model that uses industries as a factor.

This addresses the problem of lack of breadth or lack of reported data in some industries and generates practical results even for industries where other approaches have failed.

 

Speaker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raul Leote De Carvalho

Deputy Head of the Quantitative Research Group at BNP Paribas 

MODERATORS

Dominic O'KANE

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute Research Director

 

 

Emmanuel JURCZENKO

Director of Graduate

Finance Programmes,

EDHEC Business School

 

Topic    Institutional Trends in Systematic Investing

Date     Tuesday March 21st 

Time     6:00.pm-07:00.pm Paris Time

Over the recent decade, the space of systematic investing has evolved substantially. In the earlier days of its broader adoption from institutional investors it served the purpose of a liquid, uncorrelated/diversifying stream of returns to overlay on top of strategic asset allocation portfolios. Following some challenging periods, namely 2018 and 2020, the investor focus shifted towards looking for investment solutions that would solve for specific investor objectives/economic outcomes, such as looking for equity-defensive solutions, income-generating solutions, more recently inflation-defensive solutions and so on. In that journey systematic investment strategies have been one scalable and versatile tool in the hands of large institutional investors. Nick will explore current markets trends and potential investment ideas.

 

SPEAKER

 

 

Nick BALTAS

Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

 

 

MODERATORS 

 

Nikolaos TESSAROMATIS 

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

 

Laurent DEVILLE

Professor of Finance

Academic Director - Masters in Finance, EDHEC Business School

 


Topic    Making sense of green finance - how a smarter financial sector can contribute to the net zero transition

Date     Tuesday, 14 February 2023

Time    6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear fom Jean Boissinot, deputy director (financial stability) at Banque de France and Head of the NGFS Secretariat about the development of green finance from a macro and policy perspective. Green and sustainable finance has become a mainstream trend in the financial sector. Yet, its role in the transition remains poorly understood and its value is something being questioned. Jean will draw from a first-hand experience in the development of the global policy agenda and his involvement into various private sector initiatives to propose an understanding of what to expect (and what not to expect) from green and sustainable finance. His talk will draw from this recent book "La Finance verte" published in November 2022 (édition Dunod). 

SPEAKER

 

 

Jean BOISSINOT

Deputy Director at Banque de France

 

 

MODERATORS

Olivier David ZERBIB

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

Emmanuel JURCZENKO

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 

Topic    Navigating the world of ESG ratings

Date     Tuesday, 13 December 2022

Time    6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

This talk will give an overview of the construction of ESG ratings and show that there is much disagreement between different ESG rating providers. As measurement is one of the most important drivers of the disagreement between raters, Florian will show how measurement errors affect ESG portfolio construction and asset pricing.  The talk will end with an analysis of how ratings actually matter economically.

SPEAKER

Florian BERG

Research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management

MODERATORS

Abraham LIOUI

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

Emmanuel JURCZENKO

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 

Topic    Quantifying Economic Narratives for Financial Markets - A New Approach to Asset Pricing

Date     Tuesday, 15 November 2022

Time    6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

This talk introduces a systematic approach to quantifying economic narratives based on traditional and social media. Asset-price risk exposures are measured for hundreds of attention-derived narratives, including macroeconomic, ESG, crypto, and emerging trends. Narrative betas can be used to gain or hedge portfolio exposure to narratives by constructing dedicated basket portfolios of narrative-sensitive assets. The framework introduced here extends the traditional paradigm of factor models to a more general class of intangible factors combined with behavioral elements pertaining to investor attention.

 

SPEAKER

Ronnie SADKA

Ronnie SADKA Professor of Finance, Associate Dean for Faculty Boston College

MODERATORS

 

Gideon OZIK

Managing Partner, MKT MediaStats EDHEC Business School, Affiliate Professor State Street, Academic Partner Deloitte, Advisory Board

Emmanuel JURCZENKO

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 

Topic     Passion Assets

Date       Tuesday, 18th October 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

We will hear from William Goetzmann, Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and Faculty Director of the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management, about what research has discovered about art as investment.

Prestige items have been a store of wealth and a symbol of power throughout human history. Now as in the past they are also typically a part of the portfolio of many wealthy investors. William will discuss how the new world of digital, non-fungible art has emerged to challenge traditional contemporary art collecting.

 

SPEAKER

 

William GOETZMANN

Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and Faculty Director of the International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management

MODERATORS

Laurent Calvet

Professor of Finance, Edhec Business School

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 

Topic     The Future of Institutional Investing

Date       Tuesday, 13th September 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Marcos Lopez de Prado, Global Head - Quantitative Research and Development at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Professor of Practice at Cornell University, about the reasons why factor investing research remains at a pre-scientific stage, and the need for financial researchers and asset managers to embrace scientific protocols.

View presentation

SPEAKER

Marcos Lopez de Prado

Global Head Quantitative R&D (ABU DHAB Investment Authority) and Professor of Practice (Cornell University)

 

MODERATORS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dominic O'Kane

Professor, EDHEC-Risk Institute Member

 

 

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 

 

Topic     Climate Finance: from Climate Risk to Financial Risk

 

Date       Thursday, 5 May 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Stefano Battiston - Professor of Finance at the University of Zurich, Professor of Economics at University of Venice, and Lead Author of the Chapter on Investment and Finance of sixth IPCC Assessment report - about climate stress test and the analysis of financial risks and opportunities of climate mitigation. The first climate stress-test of European banks will be published later this year. Will they make up for the expectations? The recently published IPCC report says it all: it's now or never. Humanity is at a road junction between starting now a low-carbon transition or facing irreversible and growing impacts of climate change. So what does this means for the financial sector? 

 

Well, of course the low-carbon transition could take place in an orderly way, with no big changes on asset prices. But will it do so? In fact, there is a real possibility of large adjustments in asset valuation if market expectations come to internalise the implications of the decarbonization scenarios. Hence the importance of using adequately the climate scenarios when conduct climate stress-tests.

 

View Presentation

 

SPEAKER

 

 

Stefano Battiston

Professor of Finance at the University of Zurich, Professor of Economics at University of Venice

MODERATORS

Riccardo Rebonato,

Professor, Researcher at EDHEC-Risk Institute

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 


 

Topic     Quant investing: today and tomorrow

 

Date       Thursday, 28 April 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Weili Zhou, Head of Quant Equity Research at Robeco, about the opportunities and challenges for quant investing in today’s world.
Next to that, from a practitioner’s perspective, she will share her insights on the added value of advanced technologies (e.g. ML and NLP) and alternative datasets (e.g. news flow and social network).

 

View Presentation

SPEAKER

 

 

Weili Zhou,

Head Quant Equity Research, Robeco

MODERATORS

Florian Pelgrin,

Professor of Finance, Edhec Business School.

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School.

 


 

Topic     DEFI: the Future of Finance?

 

Date       Thursday, 31 March 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Campbell Harvey, Professor of Finance at Duke University on the opportunities and risks of decentralized finance (DeFi). DeFi is a blockchain-based technology that seeks to disrupt traditional channels of savings, lending, exchange and insurance.
In the world of DeFi, all value is tokenized. DeFi is an integral part of both Web3 and the metaverse. While the opportunities are considerable, it is important to understand the risks that this new technology faces.

 

View Presentation Links

Coursera Book Link

 

SPEAKER

 

 

Campbell Harvey,

Professor of Finance, Duke University

MODERATORS

Raman Uppal,

Professor of Finance, Edhec Business School

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 


 

Topic     Will Private Markets Kill Them All?

 

Date       Thursday, 24 March 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We heard from Ludovic Phalippou, Professor of Financial Economics, Head of Finance Accounting and Management Economics academic area at University of Oxford Said Business School, about the complexity of private markets. Home to a stockpile of mythologies, war-stories and fantasies, private markets are shrouded in complex jargon, hard to penetrate, controversial, and yet partying like it is 1999. They are now everywhere. Taking the investment world by storm. Just passed the $10 trillion mark for Xmas, up from less than $1 trillion just 20 years ago. Went through 2008 and COVID-19 undented. Public markets are so last century – Can they actually die altogether? Or will a hybrid world emerge?

 

SPEAKER

 

Ludovic Phalippou,

Professor of Financial Economics, Saïd Business School

 

 

View Presentation

View Paper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hamid Boustanifar,

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 


 

Topic     SPACs: (almost) everything you need to know about SPACs

 

Date       Thursday, 24 February 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Jay Ritter, Professor of Finance, Warrington College of Business how Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have boomed in the U.S., with over 600 SPAC IPOs raising more than $160 billion in 2021 alone.

These shell companies then search for a private operating company to merge with, in the process injecting cash and listing it on an exchange. Thus, a SPAC merger is an alternative to a traditional IPO for the opearting company. SPACs have been very controversial, due to poor post-merger returns and the middlemen (the SPAC sponsor and underwriters) taking a big slice of the pie. Jay will discuss the economic rationale for some of the features that are used.

SPEAKER

 

 

Jay Ritter,

Professor of Finance, Warrington College of Business.

MODERATORS

Enrique Schroth,

Professor of Finance, Edhec Business School

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 


 

Topic     The Odyssey of Sovereign Sustainability

 

Date       Thursday, 17 February 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Eric Bouyé, Manager and Head of Product, Knowledge and Research at World Bank Treasury about the integration of environment and climate risk for sovereign investors, including central banks’ reserve managers.
Most central banks or risk-averse investors still invest primarily in sovereign, supranational or agency bonds for the management of their assets, offering a limited scope to achieve sustainability objectives. Eric will talk about solutions, ongoing initiatives (e.g., NGFS), and how Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) – World Bank, EIB, etc. – have been playing a role in bridging the gap between sustainable and development finance towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

 

View Presentation

View Paper

 

SPEAKER

 

 

Eric Bouyé,

Head of Product, Knowledge and Research at World Bank Treasury

MODERATORS

Irène Monasterolo,

Professor of Finance, Edhec Business School

Emmanuel Jurczenko,

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School

 


 

Topic     Sustainable Alpha: doing well by doing good?

 

Date      Thursday, 27 January 2022
Time      6:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Paris Time

 

We will hear from Andrew Ang, Managing Director and Head of Factor-based strategies at BlackRock how sustainable datasets can be incorporated in style factors and generate alpha.
Sustainable data include non-financial data from social media, influencers, news flow, satellite images, web scraping, and other non-traditional sources. Additionally, Andrew will also discuss net-zero carbon portfolio alignment strategies that have become recently prominent in the investment space.

 

View Presentation

 

 

SPEAKER

 

 

Andrew Ang PhD,

Managing Director, Head of BlackRock Systematic Wealth Solutions and Head of the Factor-Based Strategies Group

MODERATORS

Abraham Lioui,

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

Laurent Deville,

Professor of Finance, EDHEC Business School

Emmanuel Jurczenko

Director of Graduate Finance Programmes, EDHEC Business School