Alpine Finance Summit | Sebastian Stöckl

3rd Alpine Finance Summit (AFS)

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000

Co-organized with Jochen Lawrenz (University of Innsbruck), Sebastian Utz (main organizer, University of Augsburg), and Florian Weigert (University of Neuchâtel).

Hosted in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, August 23–25, 2026.

The programme and keynote speakers will be announced on the closer to the event.

2nd Alpine Finance Summit (AFS)

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000

Co-organized with Jochen Lawrenz (University of Innsbruck), Sebastian Utz (University of Augsburg), and Florian Weigert (University of Neuchâtel).

Hosted at Park Hôtel Grenoble – MGallery, Grenoble, France, August 24–26, 2025.

Academic keynote: (University of Lausanne / Swiss Finance Institute). Alpine keynote: (mountain guide; first person to climb all 82 Alpine peaks above 4000 m).

Each paper received a 20-minute presentation, a 10-minute discussant response, and 10 minutes of open Q&A. Day 2 combined a mountain session at Chamrousse with the afternoon outdoor programme and Alpine keynote.

Programme

Sunday, 24 August 2025

Predicting Anomalies — Boone Bowles, Adam Reed, Mat Ringgenberg, Jake Thornock. Discussant: Julian Thimme.
How Costly Are Trading Heuristics? — Hee-Seo Han, Xindi He, Daniel Weagley. Discussant: Moritz Dauber.
Cash Me If You Can: ATM Explosions, Payment Choice, and Consumption — Esad Smajlbegovic, Theresa Spickers, Daniel Urban, Michael Weber. Discussant: Gertjan Verdickt.
Shifting from Active to Passive: How Retirement Plans Impact Equity Prices — Riccardo Sabbatucci, Andrea Tamoni, Song Xiao. Discussant: Ziwei Zhao.
ETFs, Anomalies, and Market Efficiency — Ilias Filippou, Songrun He, Sophia Zhengzi Li, Guofu Zhou. Discussant: Egle Karmaziene.
Improving Hedge Fund Return Prediction: Dealing with Missing Data via Deep Learning — Ilias Filippou, Ioannis Psaradellis, David Rapach, Lazaros Zografopoulos. Discussant: Richard Evans.
Information Intermediaries and Financial Product Design: Evidence from Mutual Funds — Maxime Bonelli, Anastasia Buyalskaya, Tianhao Yao. Discussant: Felix Wilke.

Evening: Academic keynote and gala dinner at Chez le Per’Gras — (University of Lausanne / SFI)

Monday, 25 August 2025 — Chamrousse mountain session

Generalized Portfolio Sorts for Factor Validation — Daniel Höchle, Markus Schmid, Heinz Zimmermann. Discussant: Paul Hübner.
The Statistical Limit of Arbitrage — Rui Da, Stefan Nagel, Dacheng Xiu.
Weak Signals, Small Bets: A Portfolio Perspective on Firm Characteristics — Daniele Bianchi, Pedro Venturi. Discussant: Guillaume Coqueret.

Afternoon: outdoor activities at Chamrousse — Alpine keynote by (mountain guide; first person to climb all 82 Alpine peaks above 4000 m)

Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Oil-Driven Greenium — Shaojun Zhang, Zhan Shi. Discussant: Karoline Bax.
Greenness Demand for US Corporate Bonds — Rainer Jankowitsch, Alexander Pasler, Patrick Weiss, Josef Zechner. Discussant: Teodor Duevski.
Nudging Investors Towards Sustainability — A Field Experiment — Lars Hornut, Christoph Merkle, Stefan Zeisberger. Discussant: Julia Meyer.
Does Climate Change Affect Retail Investors? Your Opinion Matters — Ai He, Siwen Zhang. Discussant: Bige Kahraman.

Full programme:

1st Alpine Finance Summit (AFS)

Sun, 25 Aug 2024 09:00:00 +0000

Co-organized with Jochen Lawrenz (University of Innsbruck), Sebastian Utz (University of Augsburg), Florian Weigert (University of Neuchâtel), and Alex Weissensteiner (Free University of Bolzano).

Hosted at Hotel Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria, August 25–28, 2024. Inaugural edition of what has since become an annual conference rotating across the Alpine region.

Academic keynote: (University of Chicago Booth School of Business). Alpine keynote: (professional paragliding pilot; multiple-podium finisher in the Red Bull X-Alps).

Each paper received a 20-minute presentation, a 10-minute discussant response, and 10 minutes of open Q&A. The outdoor programme featured paragliding and hiking in the Nordkette mountains above Innsbruck.

Programme

From 180 submissions, 14 papers were selected (acceptance rate < 8%). Each paper received a 20-minute presentation, a 10-minute discussant response, and 10 minutes of open Q&A.

Sunday, 25 August 2024

Sources of Return Predictability — Beata Gafka, Pavel Savor, Mungo Wilson. Discussant: Can Gao.
The Cross-Section of Subjective Expectations: Understanding Prices and Anomalies — Sean Myers, Ricardo de la O, Xiao Han. Discussant: Denis Mokanov.
The Hairy Premium — Zhaneta Tancheva, Pasquale Della Corte, Ljubica Georgievska, Anthony Saunders. Discussant: Petri Jylhä.
Productivity Changes around Childbirth: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry — Larissa Ginzinger, Kun Li, Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi, Gang Wang. Discussant: Boone Bowles.

Evening: Apéro at Hotel Innsbruck

Monday, 26 August 2024 — Nordkette mountain session (Restaurant Seegrube)

Machine Forecast Disagreement — Mathis Moerke, Turan G. Bali, Bryan T. Kelly, Jamil Rahman. Discussant: Alejandro Lopez-Lira.
Does Search Engine Visibility Help ETFs Attract Flows? — Olga Obizhaeva. Discussant: Juha Joenväärä.
Imputing Mutual Fund Trades — Jean-Paul Van Brakel, Dion Bongaerts, Mathijs van Dijk, Joop Huij. Discussant: Simona Abis.

Evening: Alpine keynote — Paul Guschlbauer (professional paraglider; Red Bull X-Alps)

Tuesday, 27 August 2024

Active Fund Management when ESG Matters — Andrea Tarelli, Daron Avramov, Si Cheng. Discussant: Ekaterina Neretina.
Corporate Climate Lobbying — Tingyu Yu, Markus Leippold, Zacharias Sautner. Discussant: Markus Schmid.
ESG Skill of Mutual Fund Managers — Marco Ceccarelli, Richard Evans, Simon Glossner, Mikael Homanen, Ellie Luu. Discussant: Michael Young.

Evening: Conference dinner with academic keynote — Michael Weber (University of Chicago Booth School of Business), Restaurant “SKY” Bergisel

Wednesday, 28 August 2024

The Frequency of Outperformance and Investment Decisions — Michael Ungeheuer, Martin Weber. Discussant: Petra Sinagl.
Will ETFs Drive Mutual Funds Extinct? — Anna Helmke. Discussant: Daniel Schmidt.
The Subjective Risk and Return Expectations of Institutional Investors — Spencer Couts, Andrei Goncalves, Johnathan Loudis. Discussant: Alberto Manconi.
Timing the Factor Zoo — Otto Randl, Andreas Neuhierl, Christoph Reschenhofer, Josef Zechner. Discussant: Tim Kroencke.

Full programme: