Prof. Julian Kölbel
SFI Faculty Member, Assistant Professor in Sustainable Finance, University of St.Gallen
Julian Kölbel is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Finance at the University of St.Gallen. Professor Kölbel is also a research affiliate at MIT Sloan, where he is a co-founder of the Aggregate Confusion Project. In addition to his academic work, he serves on the investment committee of the Swiss pension fund Abendrot.
Expertise
Professor Kölbel investigates how moral values and beliefs influence financial decision-making, asset prices, and the real economy. He analyzes the disagreement of ESG ratings, decomposing it into three distinct contributions: measurement, scope, and weight. Measurement divergence refers to gauging the same attribute with different indicators; scope divergence emerges when different attributes are used; weight divergence occurs when rating agencies attribute different weights because of their different views. The results show that measurement divergence is the prime cause of rating disagreements. In another stream of his work, Professor Kölbel finds that individual investors are willing to pay additional fees for an investment with positive climate impact, but that this willingness to pay does not scale with the amount of impact offered.
Expertise Fields
- Financial Markets
- Information and Market Efficiency
- Portfolio Management and Asset Classes
- Behavioral Finance and Neurofinance
- Fixed Income
- Corporate Finance and Governance
- Financial Risk and Risk Management
- Frontier Topics
- Sustainable Finance