Keynote Speaker

Prof. Suresh Deman
Honorary Director & UNEP/UNCTAD Consultant, Centre for Economics & Finance, UK

Prof. Suresh Deman has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, two Masters degrees & ABD (from India & US) and was an M. Phil (UK) in Finance and Economics and a PhD (Japan). His major fields of interests are as follows: Real Estate Finance, Game theory, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Development Economics, Regional Urban Economics and Econometrics. He also has interest in the application of quantitative economics, econometrics and game theory to Economics, Finance and Accounting.

Title of Speech: Innovation in Governance

Abstract: Since the 2008 worldwide financial crisis non-economic measures like social ostracism rather than economic ostracisms have been suggested in the literature. Rather than relying on investment-led growth which resulted in crises after crises. It is explored whether any lessons can be learned from China' s strategy by focusing on investment-led growth in three phases: (i) Infrastructure spending, (ii) focus on rural areas to stimulate demand, and (iii) speeding up of economic growth in new regions, generating housing demand leading up to consumption led growth. This strategy made China a darling of both foreign direct investment and portfolio investment suggesting while the global equity markets were in turmoil, China has emerged as safe parking lot for the global funds. In contrast to perfect competition, theoretically allows "Invisible Hand" to guide market to efficiency regardless of moral beliefs of the traders, non-economic interference is important under adverse selection as it can be helpful instead of harmful.
By lending to a group, each member of which is liable for the repayments owed by each other member, lenders from outside a local community can take advantage of some of the information and enforce mechanism available within that community. If group members can impose penalties on each other which are otherwise unavailable to the lenders, for example various forms of social pressure, then it is possible that group loan will be defaulted less often than individual loans. Such a strategy will have tendency for endogenously formed groups to be homogeneous, as the various types of borrowers self-select into groups composed of similar borrowers. This facilitates group lenders to write credit contracts which results in a separating equilibrium in a variety of circumstances than would be possible with individual lending. Dichotomy of government solutions introducing agency problem and the costly information problem that they solve by intervention will be addressed with probabilistic-strategic interaction to explain difference between complete and incomplete interbank markets leading to different outcomes.
The conventional Neo-classical wisdom of economies of scale is no longer useful in real world of uncertainly. In fact, the Bank' s high-street and investment arms are separated by a firewall to make easier and less costly' to save Banks that get into troubled or troubled banks and size of the exiting large banks split to avoid ripple effect.

Prof. Dr. Sergey Avrutin
Department of Modern Languages, Utrecht University, Netherland

Dr. Sergey Avrutin is a Professor of Comparative Pycholinguistics at the Department of Modern Languages. From 2000 to 2005 he was the program leader of the NWO-sponsored PIONEER research program Comparative Psycholinguistics. His research focuses on normal child language development and language impairment (aphasia) with special emphasis on the syntax-discourse interface and the application of information theory to the analyses of errors in child and aphasic speech as well as special registers (e.g. newspaper headlines, TV commentators, etc.) Among other things, he is a member of the editorial board of Language Acquisition, Journal of Neurolinguistics and has edited a special issue of Brain and Language.

Title of Speech: What Journalists, Children and Individuals with Brain Damage Have in Common: An Information-Theoretic View on Lexical Omissions

Abstract: All three populations mentioned in the title of this abstract exhibit a peculiar property of their linguistic expressions: they omit - optionally - functional categories, such as articles, tense, auxiliary verbs etc. While this fact is well known about small children (e.g. "Tractor go on floor"), or individuals with aphasia (e.g. "Cinderella shoe drop"), it is less often noticed (and investigated) in the writings of journalists. Yet, omission of functional categories, most notably articles, is a conspicuous feature of newspaper headlines in many (not all) languages, for example: ROBBER STEAL REAR COIN.

While the similarity may appear accidental and superficial, a closer investigation reveals regularities behind lexical omissions in all three populations. In my talk, I present a summary of several studies conducted in collaboration with Joke De Lange and Petra Schumacher that range from database analyses to EEG investigation of newspaper headlines in several languages. The model that I present finds its roots in Claude Shannon's Information Theory and explains the observed similarities in terms of information-theoretic notions of entropy of the lexical storage and the channel capacity.

Plenary Speaker

Prof. Spyros Spyrou
Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece

Spyros Spyrou, is a Professor of Finance at the Department of Accounting & Finance, Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB). He is currently the Director of the MSc in Accounting and Finance Programmes, and in the past he has served as a member of the University Senate, as a member of the Deanery, as a Deputy Rector, as the Head of the Department of Accounting & Finance, at the Managing Committee for various Postgraduate courses (MSc in Shipping, Finance, & Management, MBA International, MSc in Accounting & Finance), and as the Erasmus Program coordinator for the Department of Accounting & Finance. In previous administrative posts he has served as the Admissions Tutor for Postgraduate Courses and member of the IT Committee at the University of Durham (Department of Economics & Finance, 1999-2001) and MA Programme Leader and Postgraduate Admissions Committee at Middlesex University Business School (School of Economics) (1997-1999). He has been appointed as a Lecturer at Athens University of Economics & Business in 2001. Before that he was a Lecturer at the University of Durham (UK, 1999-2001) and Middlesex University Business School (UK, 1997-1999). He holds a PhD in Finance from Brunel University (UK) in 1997, an MSc in Business Finance from Brunel University (1993), and a BSc in Economics from the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (1990).

His research interests are in the area of asset pricing and investor behaviour. He has published in refereed academic journals such as: Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, European Financial Management, Journal of Futures Markets, International Review of Financial Analysis, The Manchester School, among others. Research papers have also been presented in numerous international conferences such as the Financial Engineering & Banking Society, European Finance Association, European Financial Management Association, Multinational Finance Society, Money Macro and Finance, British Accounting Association, etc. He is also the author of two books ("Money & Capital Markets" (LA: Greek) and "Introduction to Behavioural Finance" (LA: Greek)), and has published articles in professional journals and newspapers.

His teaching portfolio includes a large number of postgraduate modules (Money & Capital Markets, Financial Engineering, Security Investment Analysis, Portfolio Management, Behavioral Finance, Risk Management & Derivatives) and undergraduate modules (Money & Capital Markets, Investments, Security Valuation and Portfolio Management, International Finance, Derivative Markets), taught at the University of Durham, at Middlesex University Business School, and at Athens University of Economics & Business.

Title of Speech: Behavioral Finance and suitability assessment under MIFID II: A Discussion of the New Guidelines

Abstract: According to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), financial intermediaries are requested to assess the suitability of the products they sell to clients, particularly in respect of retail clients. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in a recent Consultation Paper on Guidelines on certain aspects of the MiFID II suitability requirements (13 July 2017 | ESMA35-43-748) argues that studies have analyzed how the efficiency of the typical tool used by firms to assess the suitability of an investment (the MiFID suitability assessment, i.e. the questionnaire to collect clients' information) may be affected by behavioural biases. I discuss the impact of such human tendencies on the process of financial decision making with a particular reference to the recent ESMA Consultation Paper (ESMA35-43-748), and present some examples of possible relevant questions. I argue that the new guidelines are in the right direction and may have a positive impact in investor protection.