Prof. Pablo Koch-Medina

Pablo Koch-Medina is Associate Professor of Finance and Insurance and Head of the Department of Finance at the University of Zurich. Professor Koch-Medina was responsible for launching the University's Center for Finance and Insurance, which bridges the gap between the two fields and helps advance research and foster education in applying finance theory and mathematical finance in insurance-related topics. Before his academic appointment, he worked for more than 20 years in the finance and insurance industry.

Professor Koch-Medina studies the financing and investment decisions of value-maximizing insurance firms in an environment with various financial frictions. Whether or not insurers should seek exposure to financial market risk is a subject of considerable debate, and we can read, across the literature, contradictory normative statements ranging from the optimality of no exposure to that of full exposure. Professor Koch-Medina reveals that previous work needs to pay more attention to the value of the insurer's default option or has based firm value on the wrong valuation measure. Results show that whether an insurer takes on financial market risk is mainly a result of how risk impacts both the default option and the insurer's franchise value. His research contributes to a better understanding of how insurance firms create value.

• Portfolio Management and Asset Classes
  • Asset Pricing
  • Options and Other Derivatives
• Financial Institutions
  • Insurance Companies
• Corporate Finance and Governance
  • Financial Risk and Risk Management
  • Financial Valuation
  • Financing Policy and Capital Structure
• Frontier Topics
  • Operations Research and Decision Theory