‘We Have Utilised the Strengths of Two Events’

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On October 14, HSE University will host the 11th ICEF-CInSt International Moscow Finance Conference. This year’s event is the result of the joint organisational efforts of the International Laboratory of Financial Economics (LFE ICEF) and the Centre for Institutional Studies (CinSt). Vladimir Sokolov and Maria Semenova, members of the conference's organising committee, spoke to the HSE News Service about the programme and participants of the event.

The Format of the 2022 Conference

Vladimir: Every year, LFE ICEF and CInSt hold conferences in finance featuring presentations by researchers from leading world universities. This year, in light of the difficult global situation, we have decided to join forces to support HSE University’s reputation as an active and first-class research centre in finance. Traditionally, LFE ICEF has aimed to include papers from all fields of finance in the conference and to maintain a balance between empirical and theoretical works, while CInSt has held its annual Banking Workshop devoted to banking studies. This year’s joint conference covers both of these aspects: the main presentations represent various fields of finance, while both keynote speakers present their works on banking.

Maria: HSE University does not host many conferences devoted to finance, and there are perhaps only two events with sufficient international renown thanks to the traditionally high-quality of the research presented and the outstanding reputation developed over decades of work: the ICEF International Moscow Finance Conference and the International Annual CInSt Banking Workshop ‘Banking in Emerging Markets: Challenges and Opportunities’.

We have been collaborating with our colleagues from LFE ICEF for quite a long time. This year, external circumstances meant that in order to maintain the high academic quality of both conferences (which is a priority for both organising teams), we decided to work together and utilise the strengths of the two events by combining our accumulated experience into a single conference.

The Aims of the Conference

Vladimir: The goal of hosting an annual conference in finance remains unchanged and matches that of the CInSt Banking Workshop: to strengthen the university’s reputation as a world-class research centre in finance and to attract leading researchers to HSE University. In addition, the conference provides an opportunity for HSE University researchers to exchange ideas, present their papers to the global academic community, get feedback, and network with researchers from leading world universities.

Vladimir Sokolov, Associate Professor at the International College of Economics and Finance

© HSE University

Features of the 2022 Conference

Maria: We have invited wonderful keynote speakers: Lucy Chernykh from Clemson University and Sergey Tsyplakov from the University of South Carolina. They have written publications in international academic journals of the highest level and are rightfully considered experts in finance and banking. Without exaggeration, the participants of the conference represent universities from around the world: the University of Michigan, Boston College, the University of Arizona, the University of New South Wales, The University of Hong Kong, Wenzhou-Kean University, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, each of which conducts academic studies in finance at a very high level.

We have kept the ‘long talk’ format, which allows the authors to speak about their results in detail, and have invited experts to prepare comments for each speaker.

We are confident that the conference will be a testament to how even in difficult times, HSE University retains not only its ability to host international academic events of the highest level, but also its huge research potential and openness to international academic cooperation

Vladimir: For the upcoming conference, we have planned two interesting reports in which the researchers worked with unique microdata to answer questions about the behaviour of agents who make financial decisions. This primarily refers to a paper that will be presented by Denis Sosyura of Arizona State University, in which the authors investigate managers’ decisions in capital investments, and a paper presented by Difang Huang of The University of Hong Kong in which the authors study the solutions of consumer loan managers.

I would also like to highlight two works related to studies of stock markets: a paper by Dmitriy Muravyev of Michigan State University and his co-authors about anomalies in stock markets, and a paper by Raphael Park of the University of New South Wales and his co-authors on the influence of climate regulations on company capitalisation.

The Influence of the Conference on the Laboratory of Financial Economics

Vladimir: Without a doubt, the finance conference will have a productive influence on our researchers in the short-term in regard to networking and feedback. But I would particularly like to highlight the long-term influence of this year’s conference on the future research agenda of the laboratory and the university.

Over the years, we have gained extensive experience in holding conferences at ICEF and CInSt, and each year, the quality of the studies presented has steadily grown

It is important to maintain this trend and support the reputation of the university; this will facilitate future research projects and collaborations of our researchers in fundamental research in finance.

The Collaboration Between LFE ICEF and CInSt

Maria: The Centre for Institutional studies covers several quite different research fields. ‘Banks and Banking: Institutions and Markets’ is one of them. The subject of our research involves the microeconomic analysis of banking activities and the study of the financial strategies of households.

Maria Semenova, Deputy Director of the Centre for Institutional Studies

© HSE University

Research projects in this field include banking sector regulation, the transparency of banking activities, competition in banking services markets, market discipline and other investor strategies, the influence of credit bureaus on credit risks, the effects of the pandemic on various banking markets, the role of financial literacy on the formation of household strategies, and more. Study of the banking sector is also a priority area for the LFE. For that reason, it is highly likely that cooperation in organising the joint conference could serve as the basis for collaboration on joint research projects in the future.

Vladimir: This year, the conference will be held in a hybrid format. Offline conferences will take place in Room F301. It will also be possible to participate online. A link will be sent to all registered users. You can register to attend (in any format) through the twin event pages on the CInSt and ICEF websites.