Alberto G. Rossi

Contact Information:

McDonough School of Business, Office 427

Georgetown University  

37th and O Street NW 

Washington, DC, 20057

Email: agr60@georgetown.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Published and Accepted Papers

1. "Machine Learning from a Universe of Signals: The Role of Feature Engineering,'' with Bin Li, Xueming (Sterling) Yan and Lingling Zheng

Journal of Financial Economics, Conditionally Accepted 

2. "How Costly are Cultural Biases? Evidence from FinTech" with Francesco D'Acunto and Pulak Ghosh 

Journal of Financial Economics, Conditionally Accepted 

3. "Goal Setting and Saving in the FinTech Era,'' with Antonio Gargano

Journal of Finance, 2024, 79 (3), 1931-1976 

4. "The Diversification and Welfare Effects of Robo-advising,'' with Stephen Utkus

(Previously titled "Who Benefits from Robo-advising? Evidence from Machine Learning")

Journal of Financial Economics, 2024, 157, 103869

5. "Crowdsourcing Peer Information to Change Spending Behavior,'' with Francesco D'Acunto and Michael Weber

Journal of Financial Economics, 2024, 157, 103858

• MEDIA COVERAGE: Wall Street Journal, Forbes, MarketWatch, ETF.COM, Chicago Booth Review, YouTube Video

6. "Regressive Mortgage Credit Redistribution in the Post-crisis Era," with Francesco D'Acunto  

Review of Financial Studies, 2022, 35 (1), 482-525 

7. "The Promises and Pitfalls of Robo-advising," with Francesco D'Acunto and Nagpurnanand Prabhala

Review of Financial Studies, 2019, 32 (5), 1982-2020

8. "Understanding the Sources of Risk Underlying the Cross-Section of Commodity Returns," with Gurdip Bakshi and Xiaohui Gao

Management Science, 2019, 65 (2), 619-641, Online Appendix    

• MEDIA COVERAGE: QuantPedia, Quantocracy

9. "Does it Pay to Pay Attention?" with Antonio Gargano

Review of Financial Studies, 2018, 31 (12), 4595-4649. Lead article (Editor's choice)

• AWARDS: Semi-finalist at the 2017 CFA Institute Asia Pacific Capital Markets Research Award

• MEDIA COVERAGE: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, Reuters, CNBC, Business Insider, @WBNews, Yahoo Finance, Smith Brain Trust 

10. "Network Centrality and Delegated Investment Performance,” with David Blake, Allan Timmermann, Ian Tonks and Russ Wermers

Journal of Financial Economics (Lead Author), 2018, 128, 183-206

11. "The Freedom of Information Act and the Race Towards Information Acquisition," with Antonio Gargano and Russ Wermers

Review of Financial Studies, 2017, 30 (6), 2179-2228, Online Appendix 

• AWARDS: Winner of the 2018 Michael J. Brennan Award for Best paper in the Review of Financial Studies (Runner-up), Winner of the 2016 Crowell Prize (First Prize) - PanAgora Asset Management, Winner of the 2015 CFA Institute Asia Pacific Capital Markets Research Award

• MEDIA COVERAGE: ValueWalk, Alpha, Nfoic.org, National Affairs, Smith Brain Trust

12. "A Spanning Series Approach to Options," with Steve Heston

Review of Asset Pricing Studies, 2017, 7 (1), 2-42. Lead article (Editor's choice)

13. "Modeling Covariance Risk in Merton's ICAPM," with Allan Timmermann

Review of Financial Studies, 2015, 28 (5), 1428-1461 

(A previous version of the paper was circulated under the title "What is the Shape of the Risk-Return Relation?")

14. "Decentralization in Pension Fund Management," with David Blake, Allan Timmermann, Ian Tonks and Russ Wermers

Journal of Investment Management, 2015, 13 (3), 35-56

15. "Decentralized Investment Management: Evidence from the Pension Fund Industry," with David Blake, Allan Timmermann, Ian Tonks and Russ Wermers 

Journal of Finance, 2013, 68, 1133-1178 Online Appendix

• MEDIA COVERAGE: CFA Digest

Invited Articles and Non-Refereed Publications  

1. "Taming Behavioral Biases in Consumer Decision-Making: The Role of Robo-Advisors" with Francesco D'Acunto 

"Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance," Forthcoming 

2. "Robo-Advice: Transforming Households into Rational Economic Agents," with Francesco D'Acunto 

"Annual Review of Financial Economics," Forthcoming 

Editors: Antoinette Schoar

3. "IT Meets Finance: Financial Decision Making in the Digital Era," with Francesco D'Acunto 

"Handbook of Financial Decision Making," Edward Edgar Publishing Ltd, Forthcoming 

Editors: G. Hilary and D. Mclean

4. "New Frontiers of Robo-Advising: Consumption, Saving, Debt Management, and Taxes," with Francesco D'Acunto 

"Machine Learning in Financial Markets: A Guide to Contemporary Practice," Cambridge University Press, 2022 

Editors: Agostino Capponi and Charles-Albert Lehalle

5. "Robo-Advising," with Francesco D'Acunto 

Palgrave Macmillan Handbook of Technological Finance, 2021

Editors: R. Rau, R. Wardrop, L. Zingales

Working Papers 

1. "Selecting Mutual Funds from the Stocks they Hold: a Machine Learning Approach,'' with Bin Li

(R&R at the Review of Financial Studies) 

2. "What's in Investors' Information Sets?" with Hagit Levy, Ron Shalev, and Emanuel Zur

3. "Algorithm Aversion: Theory and Evidence from Robo-advice,'' with Fiona Greig, Tarun Ramadorai, Stephen Utkus, and Ansgar Walther

4. "Improving Household Debt Management with Robo-advice,'' with Ida Chak, Karen Croxson, Francesco D'Acunto, Jonathan Reuter, and Jonathan Shaw

5. "An Inside Look into Cryptocurrency Exchanges,'' with Qing Chan, Wenzhi Ding and Chen Lin

• MEDIA COVERAGE: Institutional Investor

6. "The Needs and Wants in Financial Advice: Human versus Robo-Advising,'' with Stephen Utkus

7. "Political Partisanship and the Transmission of Fiscal Policy" with Francesco D'Acunto and Pulak Ghosh 

8. "Predicting Stock Market Returns with Machine Learning''

9. "Rise of the 'Quants' in Financial Services: Regulation and Crowding out of Routine Jobs,'' with Christos Makridis

10. "Social Networks and Cryptocurrencies,'' with Kunpeng Zhang

11. "Do Investors Want Portfolio Churning?,'' with Stephen Utkus

12. "Understanding Time-Varying Attention and Trading'' 

13. "A Utility-Based Model Combination for Portfolio Choice,” with Georgios Skoulakis