Freshman class

Looking for the invisible

Georg Strasser, assistant professor of economics

PhD, University of Pennsylvania

"On the Correlation Structure of Microstructure Noise in Theory and Practice," (with Francis X. Diebold), PIER Working Paper 08-038, University of Pennsylvania, 2008

Living next to an international border as a youngster, I wondered why German farmers went out of business when the Italian lira depreciated. Searching for a rigorous answer to questions like this led me to study international finance and international economics. My current research includes work on identifying invisible barriers to trade and investment, using price level differences between countries. In another project, I suggest ways to improve the estimation of volatility in financial markets—a critical piece of information for effective risk management. Currently, I am studying the causes and effects of international financial crises.