Prof. Laurent Frésard

Laurent Frésard is Professor of Finance at the Università della Svizzera italiana. Previously, Professor Frésard was a member of the faculties at HEC Paris and the University of Maryland. His papers have been published in leading academic journals and he has received several grants and awards. In 2024 he became an editor at the Review of Finance.

Professor Frésard studies the interactions between financial markets and firms' real decisions. His recent research examines how the emergence of big data and advanced analytics affects the functioning of financial markets and firms' decisions. In recent work, he shows that the abundance of alternative data in the financial sector, including social media content and satellite images, can lower the informativeness of financial forecasting and especially the quality of long-term forecasts. Further analysis shows that this skew from long-term forecasts to short-term forecasts results in the capital allocation decisions of firms favoring short-term investments. This is not only of interest to financial investors but also concerns the need for long-term investments to fight climate change. Professor Frésard actively participates in SFI Knowledge Exchange activities on impact investing and data and technology in finance.

• Financial Markets
  • Financial Forecasting
  • Information and Market Efficiency
  • International Financial Markets and Emerging Markets
• Financial Institutions
  • Institutional Investors and Funds
  • Pension Funds
• Corporate Finance and Governance
  • Bankruptcy and Liquidation
  • Capital Budgeting and Investment Policy
  • Corporate Governance and Managerial Compensation
  • Financial Risk and Risk Management
  • Financial Valuation
  • Financing Policy and Capital Structure
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
• Frontier Topics
  • Big Data and Fintech
  • Sustainable Finance