On 31st October, Professor Utpal Bhattacharya of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology visited our institute. Professor Bhattacharya is Professor of Finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Director of the Asian Financial Markets Research Center, and Editor of Financial Management. His publications have appeared in top-tier finance journals like the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, The Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Business, top-tier accounting journals like The Accounting Review, and top-tier economics journals like the Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Law and Economics and the Journal of Monetary Economics. Professor Bhattacharya's research has been featured in full-length stories more than a hundred times in various media across the world, and has been valued by US and Canadian securities regulators.
In the morning, President Yan Weilong met with Professor Bhattacharya. Professor Yan and Professor Bhattacharya exchanged views on the financial development of Greater China, the stock market crash in 2015, and the Chinese real estate market. Professor Bhattacharya argues that one of the major features of Asian financial markets (not including Japan) is that individual investors account for the majority, leading to varying degrees of irrationality in the marketplace. After the meeting, Professor Bhattacharya gave a seminar entitled "Do Superstitious Traders Lose Money?". How superstition as a cognitive bias affects financial transactions is an important and interesting research topic. The talk attracted various scholars from different universities.