Doctoral Researchers

Ibrahim Alquwayfili

Thesis Title: The Effects of Board Gender Diversity on Carbon Performance

Shareholders are increasingly pushing firm managements to assess their climate-based opportunity and risk profile and present the financial impacts coming from managerial decisions with respect to climate. There are greater challenges involved in implementing climate initiatives, as different stakeholders have conflicting interests, meaning that diversity, representativeness, and independence of the board are important for resolving these issues through balancing the company’s financial objectives with its other objectives. the study aims to investigate the human capital of the directorial board to reinforce the positive orientation of female directors toward increasing a firm’s carbon performance.

1st Supervisor: Dr. Sardar Ahmad

2nd Supervisor: Dr. Ziyang Zhang

Email address: Psialquw@liverpool.ac.uk

Finn Corbett

Thesis Title: Dissecting Intraday and Overnight Information from Characteristics

My research aims to separate the information gained from intraday and overnight trading in order to generate improved asset pricing predictions and theories. My research employs large datasets and machine learning in order to tackle the problem. 

1st Supervisor: Dr Shamim Ahmed

2nd Supervisor: Dr Rodrigo Hizmeri

Email address: finncorb@liverpool.ac.uk

Yan Dong

Thesis Title: Detecting accounting fraud in China: Machine learning approach with financial and corporate governance information

This project investigates whether corporate governance factors have a significant influence on the likelihood of committing accounting fraud from the perspective of prediction. The categories of accounting fraud that exist in China in accordance with regulations, legislation, and prior research are outlined. After that, an ensemble learning approach is used to forecast accounting fraud in the Chinese stock market using raw financial and corporate governance information.  

1st Supervisor: Dr Minjoo Kim

2nd Supervisor: Prof Yiquan Gu

Email address: yan.dong2@liverpool.ac.uk 

Working paper:

Li H. & Dong Y. (2019). Cyclical Evolution of Connectedness and Systemic Risk in Chinese Financial Institutions (Accepted by 2019 National Academic Forum for Doctoral Students in Quantitative Economics in China)

Dong Y. & Kim M. (2022) Does raw financial information help to detect accounting fraud in China? (Presented at 12th Financial Markets Corporate Governance Conference)

Md Sahid Hossain

Mengzhu Liu

Thesis Title: Statistical Arbitrage in Machine learning

This study detected there is a deterministic trend of stock price after it hits the daily price limit or has a large daily return change in the Chinese stock market, and aims to use machine learning methods, especially neural networks to predict future stock returns and takes advantage of these trends to propose statistical arbitrage strategies. 

1st Supervisor: Dr Xiaoxia Ye

2nd Supervisor: Prof Charlie Cai

Email: mengzhu.liu@liverpool.ac.uk

Anh Dang Bao Phan

Thesis Title: New-based financial indices and financial phenomena under extreme events.

Understanding the dynamic movement of financial market is one of interesting challenges to researchers. Notwithstanding much effort in analyzing the stock price movement, the financial market is still enigmatic and nearly defies all standard financial theories, particularly in the extreme volatile events. Recently, behavioural finance has developed a more realistic and reasonable explanation to the clustered market volatility, which build on the social and psychological rules. We will employ behavioral finance theories to empirically investigate some financial phenomena in its relation to uncertainties based on news, especially under extreme events.

1st Supervisor: Dr Vasileios Kallinterakis

2nd Supervisor: Dr Shamim Ahmed

Email address: a.phan@liverpool.ac.uk

Publications

• Vo, X. V. & Phan, D. B. A. (2019). Herding and equity market liquidity in emerging market: Evidence from Vietnam. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance 24, 100189.
• Vo, X. V. & Phan, D. B. A. (2019). Herd behavior and idiosyncratic volatility in a frontier market. Pacific-Basin Finance Journal 53, 321-330.
• Vo, X. V. & Phan, D. B. A. (2017). Further evidence on the herd behavior in Vietnam stock market. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance 13, 33-41.

Jiaqi Wang

Thesis Title: Tick Size and Internal Control Opinion Shopping: Evidence from the 2016 SEC Tick Size Program

The research investigates the impact of the 2016 Tick Size Pilot Program (TSPP) on "opinion shopping" among small-cap firms. Opinion shopping involves seeking favourable auditor opinions to avoid negative consequences. The TSPP increased tick sizes for selected small-cap stocks, impacting their trading and liquidity. The study analyses whether this policy change influenced opinion shopping behaviour. Despite increased earnings management, the wider tick size reduced opinion shopping among treated small-cap firms, aligning with improved financial reporting quality observed in previous research.

1st Supervisor: Dr. Sardar Ahmad

2nd Supervisor: Dr. Kostas Pappas

Email address: Jiaqi.Wang@liverpool.ac.uk

Jingjing Wang

Thesis Title: Political Connections, Environmental Violations and Punishment: Evidence from Heavily Polluting Firms in China.

Jingjing Wang’s research areas cover a wide range of topics regarding corporate finance and corporate governance with a special interest focus on green finance and ESG.
The current empirical research aims to explore the relationship between political connections and corporate environmental punishment in China. This study contributes to the literatures emphasizing the importance of political connections for a firm’s environmental decisions and performance. In response to the climate change crisis, it is important to understand how political connections affect environmental enforcers in a transition economy.

1st Supervisor: Prof Chris Florakis

2nd Supervisor: Dr Xi Fu

Email address: j.wang119@liverpool.ac.uk

Working paper:

Political Connections, Environmental Violations and Punishment: Evidence from Heavily Polluting Firms in China.

-Presented at the Alliance Manchester Business School Doctoral Fortnight 2020-2021.

-Excellent Paper Award at the 18^th Seminar of Accounting Academic Alliance & Yanzhao Accounting Forum in the “New Finance” context in China (“会计学术联盟第十八期 Seminar暨‘新财经’背景下首届燕赵会计论坛”).

-Accepted for presentation at the 4th Annual GRASFI Conference (PhD Session), the International Accounting & Finance Doctoral Symposium (IAFDS 2021), the 2021 International Conference on Derivatives and Capital Markets, and the China Accounting and Finance Review (CAFR) 2021 Virtual Annual Conference (Plenary Session).

Lingzi Xing

Thesis Title: Loan loss provisions and intermediary asset pricing (to be confirmed)

My research is to assess the correlation between loan loss provisions and asset pricing, and to see whether bank provisioning is a key factor in explaining expected excess returns.

1st Supervisor: Dr Xiaoxia Ye

2nd Supervisor: Prof Charlie Cai

Email: Lingzi.Xing@liverpool.ac.uk

Meltem Yagli

Thesis Title: Currency Option Implied Volatility Networks and Geopolitical Risk

Currency networks represent a complex and dynamic framework of interconnections among global currencies, reflecting the intricate relationships formed through trade, investment, and financial transactions. These networks are influenced by a multitude of factors including economic policies, geopolitical developments, and market sentiment. Understanding the structure and behaviour of currency networks is crucial for identifying potential vulnerabilities

and points of systemic risk within the global financial system. Changes in one currency can have cascading effects across the network, influencing exchange rates, altering trade balances, and impacting economic stability in various regions. As the global economy becomes increasingly interconnected, the analysis of currency networks enables policymakers, investors, and businesses to better navigate these interdependencies, optimize currency

risk management strategies and enhance overall economic resilience. This study aims to contribute to the financial economics and financial econometrics literature by answering the following research questions.

• How do the network and connectedness of volatility among currency pairs change over time and during major macroeconomic or financial events?
• How do the volatility measures of these currency pairs change in response to major political events or geopolitical uncertainty?

1st Supervisor: Dr Michael Ellington

2nd Supervisor: Dr Mattia Bevilacqua

Email address: M.yagli@liverpool.ac.uk

Sheng Yang

My research focuses on applying the functional autoregressive model (FAR) and machine learning algorithms to develop a novel forecasting framework for robust financial risk management. This study will increase our understanding of the financial risk and provide an approach to overcome limitations of traditional econometric models.

1st Supervisor: Dr Minjoo Kim

2nd Supervisor: Prof Charlie Cai

Email: Sheng.Yang@liverpool.ac.uk

Lei Zhao

Thesis Title: CDS pricing with Behavioural approach.

Neoclassical finance focuses on developing equilibrium model in the area of asset pricing based on Expected Utility Theory under which the utility functions for different investors are assumed to be rational and unique. However, apparently irrationality is more common in actual decision-making process, indicating multi-form utility functions. As a result, how to theoretically incorporate the multi-form irrationality under the system of neoclassical equilibrium model establishment would be a profound direction for asset pricing.

1st Supervisor: Dr Xiaoxia Ye

2nd Supervisor: Dr Davide Avino

Email: L.Zhao29@liverpool.ac.uk

Zhuang Zhao

Thesis Title: Modelling Financial Markets: A Big Data Approach

My research focuses on leveraging big data and advanced computational techniques to model and predict key moments of financial market returns. One of my projects focuses on the modelling of risk, by exploiting information related to frictions in financial markets. This research will improve financial decision-making and risk management by offering more accurate and reliable risk models.  

1st Supervisor: Professor Chardin Wese Simen

2nd Supervisor: Dr Rodrigo Hizmeri

Email address: Z.Zhao108@liverpool.ac.uk