HKUST Summer Research

Program Dates

• Arrival and dorm check-in: June 12, 2025

• Research program period (including end-of-program event): June 16 - August 8, 2025 

• Dorm check-out date: August 10, 2025

Program Highlights

• 3 credit hour UG Research course

• Work under the mentorship of a research project supervisor 

• Immerse in local Hong Kong culture via orientation and cultural activities 

• End-of-program research presentation and discussion

• All research work, reports, and presentations conducted in English

Research Projects in the Department of Finance 

How do Personal Incentives of Mutual Fund Managers impact ESG investments?

Project Description: In this project, we examine whether there are personal incentives of mutual fund managers when they make ESG decisions. We use data from US mutual fund managers.

Student Roles: Students will be expected to help with cleaning data and help processing such data. The data cleaning task mainly includes going through matches that we generate using AI and machine learning methods.

Institutional Investors and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Preferences

Project Description: Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) has become a very important topic around the globe due to climate change as well as a rise in social and environmental awareness. However, it is still not clear whether the most important players in financial markets, the asset management companies (e.g., hedge funds), care about ESG. This project aims to understand whether certain types of asset management companies have specific preferences to ESG. This is a joint project with professors from the University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, and Boston University.

Student Roles: Students will be expected to collect data, manually match datasets, and read various reports related to ESG from, for instance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alongside engaging in other data related tasks.

The Role of Institutional Investors in ESG Outcomes

Project Description: Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) has become a treding topic. Although much research has been conducted recently, the role of key financial players, such as institutional money management companies (e.g., pension funds, hedge funds) in ESG outcomes is not fully clear. By building on findings from a joint project with professors from the University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, and Boston University, this project will allow students to use institutional ownership data, such as portfolio holdings, shareholder voting data, PAC data, and other related datasets.

Student Roles: Students will be expected to do a literature review and help with data cleaning and matching.

Research Projects in the Department of Management

Judgement and Decision Making in Organizations

Project Description: This project examines the roles of heuristics and biases in judgment and decision-making. We will conduct experiments informed by psychology and economics to examine how people make choices relevant to a business context. As there are multiple ongoing streams of research, the specific topic can be matched with your interests. See David's research to get a sense of the kind of projects you would be involved in (https://www.dhagmann.com/research/).

Student Roles: Student will be expected to implement experimental surveys in Qualtrics, conduct basic data processing and visualization, classify participants’ responses according to a schema, and participate in research and experimental designs.