Laurent Fresard
Date: 16 October 2026, Friday
Time: 13.30 – 14.30
Online
https://zoom.us/j/3370698252?pwd=OWRmQ1hNNWhRWng2QnhsTENzK1hGUT09&omn=93334435355&mynotes=on
Meeting ID: 337 069 8252
“Are New Technologies Replacing the Information Produced by Financial Markets?”
by
Laurent Fresard
University of Lugano
Abstract
Firms are increasingly collecting and analyzing data. After adopting technologies to exploit customer data collected from their website, firms’ investment becomes less sensitive to their stock price. This effect is consistent with a model in which data technologies improves managers’ internal information about future demand, and reduces their reliance on stock prices for that information. This “replacement effect” is robust to alternative explanations and reverses when data usage is limited by privacy restrictions. Our findings suggest that the diffusion of data technologies reduces the informational role of financial markets in guiding firms’ investment decisions.
Bio
Laurent Frésard is Professor of Finance at the Università della Svizzera italiana. Previously, Professor Frésard was a member of the faculties at HEC Paris and the University of Maryland. His papers have been published in leading academic journals and he has received several grants and awards. In 2024 he became an editor at the Review of Finance. Professor Frésard studies the interactions between financial markets and firms’ real decisions. His recent research examines how the emergence of big data and advanced analytics affects the functioning of financial markets and firms’ decisions. In recent work, he shows that the abundance of alternative data in the financial sector, including social media content and satellite images, can lower the informativeness of financial forecasting and especially the quality of long-term forecasts. Further analysis shows that this skew from long-term forecasts to short-term forecasts results in the capital allocation decisions of firms favoring short-term investments. This is not only of interest to financial investors but also concerns the need for long-term investments to fight climate change. Professor Frésard actively participates in SFI Knowledge Exchange activities on impact investing and data and technology in finance.