Finance Brown Bag Seminar

Scholars at WU, the PhD students of VGSF as well as international guests present their working papers for discussion in the Brown Bag Seminar. The seminar is organized by our Institute together with the Institute for Financial Research, the Vienna Institute of Finance and the Vienna Graduate School of Finance.

It usually takes place on Wednesdays from 12:00 to 13:00 (location tba). For further information, please contact bbs-finance@wu.ac.at

• December 16, 2026 / 12:00–13:00 / TC.3.06
  Thu Nguyen (Vienna University of Economics and Business) 
  
   

• November 18, 2026 / 12:0013:00 / room tba
  Giorgio Ottonello (Vienna University of Economics and Business)
  Shadow Discounts (with Tomy Lee, Isacco Lotti, Florian Nagler and Chaojun Wang)
  
  Abstract: Centralized trading platforms should improve competition in OTC markets. Using transaction records from the U.S. corporate bond market and exploiting variation within client-dealer relationships, we find no evidence that clients receive better secondary-market trading terms after adopting a platform. To reconcile this puzzling finding, we present a model in which relationship dealers operate in both primary and secondary markets. A central insight, for which we find strong empirical support, is that dealers respond to clients‘ improved outside options not by changing secondary-market terms, but by granting larger primary-market allocations. Guided by the model, we estimate that platform adoption is worth 77% of clients‘ pre-adoption profits from primary-market allocations. Overall, the effects of platforms in OTC markets are more complex than previously thought.
  
   

• November 12, 2026 / 12:00–13:00 / room tba
  Emanuele Rizzo (ESADE Business School)
  
   

• November 5, 2026 / 10:00-11:00 / D2.0.342
  Tobin Hanspal (Vienna University of Economics and Business)