Finance

A new study developed by Thomas Åstebro, Professor of Entrepreneurship at HEC Paris, finds that the number of private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms using artificial intelligence has increased dramatically in the past decade. The study claims that while increasing efficiency overall, AI will also change deal-making processes and destroy junior-level jobs. This article summarizes the article, ‘An Inside Peek at AI Use in Private Equity’, published in the Journal of Financial Data Science (Summer 2021, jfds.2021.1.067) with Portfolio Management Research (PMR).

As the U.S. staggers beneath the weight of its education debt – a crushing $1.6 trillion in 2020 – there are increasing calls for loan forgiveness. But debt forgiveness plans need to be crafted carefully or they might actually disproportionately favor high-income individuals or specific ethnic groups. A duo of Finance researchers, Sylvain Catherine of Wharton School and Constantine Yannelis of Chicago Booth School of Business, explains how to tailor such policies to better redistribute their benefits. Sylvain Catherine is a HEC Paris PhD alumnus.    

On September 7, El Salvador became the world’s first nation to make the cryptocurrency bitcoin legal tender across the country. This bold initiative from the tiny Central American state is dissected by HEC Paris Professor in Finance Bruno Biais, who has written several top research papers on cryptocurrency.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many households started to invest in the stock market expecting to pick the winning stocks and to take advantage of the high volatility. This phenomenon has been possible thanks to the development of trading applications such as Robinhood, which provides individual investors with the opportunity to buy and sell stocks easily. Because most individual investors do not have sufficient time and financial skills, they need to find relevant information to pick stocks. While some of them use social networks such as Twitter, Stocktwits or the WallStreetBets discussions on Reddit, other investors rely on the Wall Street gurus. Is that really a good idea to listen to them?

Jean-Noël Barrot is an associate professor at HEC Paris and member of parliament for Yvelines in France’s National Assembly, combining his political work with his research in finance. On June 29, he submitted a report to the government in which he detailed proposals to help France recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, Jean-Noël Barrot explains how he manages to combine his research and his role in parliament in an effective way.

The business model of many tech companies is based on collecting and using data about their customers. Google and Facebook generate revenues by selling targeted ads tailored to users' personal information. Amazon shows you the product they forecast you will buy. Tesla collects data on drivers' behavior and is said to plan using these data to enter into the insurance business. Google has just acquired smartwatch producer Fitbit, which collects data about users' health. The list goes on and on. So why most of us still widely share our personal data, even when we claim to be worried by the lack of online privacy?

What is a cryptocurrency? And what are the stakes of maintaining its stability? What role does it play in Economics and politics? In this interview, Bruno Biais, HEC Paris Professor of Finance and expert of cryptocurrencies, explains.