Marina Niessner

Marina Niessner
  • Judith C. and William G. Bollinger Visiting Associate Professor of Finance

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    2423 Steinberg - Dietrich Hall
    3620 Locust Walk
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: Behavioral Finance, Empirical Asset Pricing, FinTech

Links: Personal Website

Overview

Professor Niessner is currently a Judith C. and William G. Bollinger Visiting Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Prior to joining Wharton, she was a Vice President at AQR Capital Management, and prior to that an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management. Dr. Niessner holds a BA in Economics and Statistics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Dr. Niessner’s main academic research interests are behavioral finance, empirical asset pricing, and FinTech. In her recent work, she applies methods from linguistic psychology to identify fake news articles on knowledge sharing platforms, and to examine their impact on financial markets. Her academic research has been published in the Journal of Finance and the Review of Financial Studies, among others, as well as featured in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.

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Research

« Initial Coin Offerings: Financing Growth with Cryptocurrency Token Sales », with Sabrina Howell and David Yermack, Lead article and Editor’s Choice, The Review of Financial Studies, Issue ​33 (9) 2020, pp 3925–3974

 

« Why Don’t We Agree? Evidence from a Social Network of Investors », with Anthony Cookson, Journal of Finance Vol 75, No 1 (February 2020), pp. 173-228

 

« Is Investor Attention for Sale? The Role of Advertising in Financial Markets », with Joshua Madsen, Journal of Accounting Research Vol 57, Issue 3 (June 2019), pp. 763-795

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Teaching

Past Courses

  • FNCE2190 - Intl Financial Markets/Crypto

    Major topics include foreign exchange rates, international money markets, currency and interest rate derivatives, international stock and bond portfolios, and cryptocurrencies. Students learn about the features of financial instruments and the motivations of market participants. The class focuses on risk management, investing, and arbitrage in these markets. In addition to course prerequisites, FNCE 1010 is recommended but not required.

  • FNCE3990 - Independent Study

    Integrates the work of the various courses and familiarizes the student with the tools and techniques of research.

  • FNCE7190 - Intl Financial Markets/Crypto

    Major topics include foreign exchange rates, international money markets, currency and interest rate derivatives, international stock and bond portfolios, and cryptocurrencies. Students learn about the features of financial instruments and the motivations of market participants. The class focuses on risk management, investing, and arbitrage in these markets. In addition to course prerequisites, FNCE 6130 is recommended but not required.

  • FNCE7390 - Behavioral Finance

    There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the standard economic paradigm - rational agents in an efficient market - does not adequately describe behavior in financial markets. In this course, we will survey the evidence and use psychology to guide alternative theories of financial markets. Along the way, we will address the standard argument that smart, profit-seeing agents can correct any distortions caused by irrational investors. Further, we will examine more closely the preferences and trading decisions of individual investors. We will argue that their systematic biases can aggregate into observed market inefficiencies, thus giving rise to apparently profitable trading strategies. The latter part of the course extends the analysis to corporate decision making. We then explore the evidence for both views in the context of capital structure, investment, dividend, and merger decisions. In addition to prerequisites, FNCE 7050 is highly recommended but not required.

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Activity

Latest Research

Marius Guenzel, Shimon Kogan, Marina Niessner, Kelly Shue, AI Personality Extraction from Faces: Labor Market Implications.
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In the News

Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler’s New Take on the Classic ‘Winner’s Curse’

Behavioral economists Richard Thaler and Alex Imas visited Wharton to talk about their new book, an update to Thaler's 1991 classic 'The Winner’s Curse.'…Read More

Knowledge @ Wharton - 2026/01/20
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