Research & Areas of Expertise
The Department of Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance and Risk Management seeks to be a source of high-impact scholarly research. The goal of our engaged experts is to publish research that appears in the best journals in their field and affects real-world business outcomes.
Spring 2024
- Eunjee Kwon, PhD, assistant professor of finance, published “The Rise of E-commerce and Generational Consumption Inequality: Evidence from COVID-19 in South Korea” alongside her coauthors in Regional Science and Urban Economics.
- Gary Painter, PhD, BEARE Professor of Real Estate and academic director of the Real Estate Center, published “People and place: Does the reason for redlining impact the long-term trajectory of neighborhoods” in the Journal of Urban Affairs. He also presented the paper at the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Conference.
Fall 2023
- Painter published “Deploying Social Innovation Models for Anti-Racist Practices: Lessons from Homelessness Research in Los Angeles” in the special issue Currents: How Anti-Racism Efforts Are Having an Impact in Organizations and Communities.
- Kwon and coauthors had their article “Work from Home and Urban Structure” published in Built Environment.
Summer 2023
- Painter had his co-written article “The Social Innovation Trap: Critical Insights into an Emerging Field” published in Academy of Management Annals.
Spring 2023
- Annette Hofmann, academic director of the Center for Insurance and Risk Management and Virgil M. Schwarm Associate Professor of Finance and Investments, published new research on the existence and predictability of underwriting cycles in the U.S. property and casualty insurance industry in Risks.
- Kwon had had her article, "Migration, Labor Markets and Housing" accepted in Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics.
2022
- Hoffman published a “The Ten Commandments of Risk Leadership: A Behavioral Guide on Strategic Risk Management.” The book investigates “behavioral risk economics to teach managers how to become better risk leaders and examines decision-making under risk from a cognitive and psychological perspective.”
Research in Action
AI's Financial Revolutions
AI financial advisors. Satellite imagery for inventory management. Tone analysis to predict stock movements. The next wave of business technologies is here and they’re shaping every business sector, including finance. Mehmet Saglam, PhD, Johnson Professorship, associate professor of finance, is working to understand the full spectrum of AI’s impact in the financial sector.
Of particular interest to Saglam is retail trading. Multiple AI interventions allow for the investigation of retail trading with real-world implications for the investment market. Retail traders can create market instability by reacting to news and buying or selling en masse. This was evident in the past with GameStop, where the stock price surged dramatically due to coordinated buying. Retail trading can push stock prices away from their fundamental values, leading to potential losses when prices correct.
By analyzing transaction data, AI can predict whether a trade was made by a retail trader. Retail traders tend to hold onto stocks that are losing value, which is a behavioral bias that can lead to suboptimal investment decisions. Conversely, retail traders often sell stocks that are performing well too soon, missing out on potential future gains. Understanding retail trading patterns helps analyze behavioral biases and improve investment strategies. Identifying retail trades can help in assessing their impact on market dynamics and price movements.
Research Highlights
Gary Painter, PhD, Professor of Real Estate, BEARE Chair in Real Estate and the academic director of the UC Real Estate Center, explains the significance of receiving one of the first-ever research grants from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
The grant will allow Painter and his fellow researchers to investigate how chronic homelessness impacts the older adult population in Los Angeles County, as well as the effect of housing and social benefit interventions on these citizens.