Peking University, May 26, 2022: On the 14^th and 15^th of May 2022, the sixth Peking University (PKU)-National University of Singapore (NUS) Annual International Conference on Quantitative Finance and Economics was held online. Jointly organised by PKU HSBC Business School, NUS Risk Management Institute, and Key Laboratory of Mathematical Economics and Quantitative Finance (PKU), Ministry of Education, the conference aims to be a platform for exchange amongst academics and industry experts, to strengthen quantitative finance and economics work and explore latest investment strategies for the best response to regulatory changes in the financial sector.


On the 14^th, Professor Li Chenxu from the Guanghua School of Management, Professor Wang Pengfei, dean of PKU HSBC Business School, as well as Professor Yi-Chun Chen, director of NUS Risk Management Institute, gave their opening addresses. Professor Li welcomed the guests and expressed his hopes that the conference would push for more academic interaction and cooperation between schools. Professor Wang thanked conference partners in his speech, shared PKU HSBC Business School’s 2021 academic findings, and revisited the partnership between PKU HSBC Business School and NUS, expressing his hope that the online conference would build friendships among researchers and lead academic research. Professor Chen recollected past conferences and welcomed the conference guests, mentioning his hope that PKU and NUS would continue to have a close partnership.

In keynote speeches, Professor Tony He from Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University introduced the paper on “Quantitative Investing and Price Informativeness”. Professor Yacine Aït-Sahalia from Princeton University and Professor Qingmin Liu from Columbia University gave speeches on “How and When are High-Frequency Prices Predictable?” and the “Stability and Efficiency of Two-Sided Matching Markets”.

The organisers also chose 45 well-written papers from the submissions and invited the writers to read their papers and discuss the findings in groups. The papers spanned the fields of microeconomics, computational finance, and many more. 7 papers from PKU HSBC Business School were among the 45 chosen.

Assistant Professor Yin Zhenda introduced his paper co-written with Professor Michael Jordan of Cornell University on “Promotions, Adverse Selection, and Efficiency ”. The paper considered how adverse selection in the labour market affects the efficiency of promotion decisions and explained various observations concerning real-world promotion decisions and practices related to up-or-out.

Assistant Professor DuckKi Cho introduced his paper “How Does Declining Worker Power Affect Investment Sensitivity to Minimum Wage ?” The paper considered microeconomic implications by examining the extent to which declining working power affects firm-level investment decisions. The paper found that changes in investment-wage sensitivities are more significant for firms that are more exposed to globalization (United States-China Act of 1991, China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organisation), technological change, and declining unionization.

Associate Professor Jaehyuk  Choi, Ph.D. student Zhang Yueqi, Ph.D. student Li Jian, Associate Professor Peng Xianhua, and other scholars from research institutions across the world also introduced their papers and engaged in discussions with other academics at the conference.

Written by: Glenda Ho
Edited by: Ma Yaoli
Source: PKU News (Chinese)