Ziwei Zhao

Ziwei Zhao is Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Lausanne. In 2020 and 2021, Professor Zhao received the HEC Research Fund from the University.

Expertise

Professor Zhao is analyzing the impact of financial ownership on financial markets. In this respect, she is currently tackling the question of whether ETF ownership generates inefficiency, by studying how mutual funds benefit from increased ETF coverage. Interestingly, US data shows that some active mutual fund managers are indeed able to take advantage of the inefficiencies caused by the increase in popularity of passive ETFs and consequently obtain higher alpha-based returns. In another vein of her work, she is studying how low institutional ownership could be a problem for firm managers, as excessive trading noise could reduce their ability to learn from the stock market.