Skip to main content

WINNER OF THE RESEARCH CONFERENCE 2008

The 2008 WHU Finance Award was conferred to Torsten Schöneborn and Alexander Schied from TU Berlin, Germany. His paper entitled "Competing players in illiquid markets" was acknowledged by the jury as the best submission to 2008´s Research Conference. Thus, the work was awarded with a prize money of € 1000.
About Torsten Schöneborn's and Alexander Schied's paper:
"The paper provides the analysis of strategic trading of distressed liquidity traders, i.e. the oprimal liquidation strategy under time restrictions. The paper is of interest for asset managers who have to unwind huge asset positions due to liquidity reasons. It delivers astonishing results: little competition (quantified by the count of competitors) is bad for the distressed liquidity trader. The paper formulates policy implications for asset managers as concnerns the disclosure of liquidity needs. The paper is written such that one understands the paper during the first read. The paper is very straightforward and immediately publishable and thus internationally competitive. It is simply excellent."

The 2nd prize witz a prize money of € 500 was awarded to Matthias Bank and Jochen Lawrenz from the University of Innsbruck, Austria for his work entitled "Demand deposits as commitment device and the optimal debt mix of banks in a continuous-time framework".
About Matthias Bank's and Jochen Lawrenz's paper:
"The goal of the paper is to present a theory for the optimal capital structure of banks. This is a challenging research question because the standard arguments in the literature, which explain optimal capital structures of non-financial firms, do not apply to banks. A major difference is - for example - the fact that banks can collect deposits which exhibit fundamentally different characteristics than the available financing instruments for non-financial firms. By incorporating the properties of both deposits and bonds into a continuous-time model, the authors provide a convincing motivation for the fact that the optimal capital structure of banks is a mix of deposits and bonds This paper is an outstanding piece of work because it applies a sophisticated model in a comprehensible way that allows to considerably contribute to the literature in the followin three ways: Firstly, while most related papers are not able to explain an optimal capital structure of banks, the paper drives the optimal amount of bank's debt. Secondly, the authors not only allow for one financing instrument but for a financing mix with deposits and bonds. Thirdly, important theoretical implications are gained from a numerical analysis that can be evaluated in a further study."

The 3rd prize (EUR 500) was granted to Aurélien Alfonsi, Alexander Schied and Antje Schulz from the TU Berlin, Germany for their paper "Optimal execution strategies in limit order books with general shape functions".
About Aurélien Alfonsi's, Alexander Schied's and Antje Schulz's paper:
"The paper is a high quality work. it is indicated to be work in progress although it is already at a very elaborate level. The referee considers it to be internationally competitive and publishable upon completion. The paper is of both interest and importance for institutional asset managers who have to transact large blocks of shares."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Ceasefire of Exhaustion: When Empires Collapse from Within

  By Malik Mukhtar — ainnbeen.blogspot.com Two years after Gaza was first set on fire , the war that began with biblical vengeance has stumbled to an exhausted ceasefire . On October 9, 2025 , Israel and Hamas — after endless carnage, famine, and rubble — have signed the first phase of a ceasefire agreement mediated in Sharm el-Sheikh . Trump called it a “ historic peace plan. ” History may call it a truce of attrition — a war that collapsed under the weight of its own hubris. What the Ceasefire Says — and What It Doesn’t Under the agreement, Israeli forces are to pull back to a designated “yellow line” within 24 hours of cabinet ratification. Hamas, in turn, will release all remaining hostages — alive or dead — within 72 hours after the withdrawal. Israel will free about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, though it made sure to exclude political figures like Marwan Barghouti , whose freedom would remind the world that Palestine still breathes. Humanitarian convoys — food,...

“They Came Home Broken":The Brutal Truth Behind the October 2025 Palestinian Releases

  They walked free —yet came home with broken bodies , shattered spirits , and scars that cannot be erased. On October 13, 2025, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees were released from Israeli custody in return for hostages freed by Hamas. Many rejoiced; families wept with relief. But behind those scenes, a darker story surfaced—one of systemic abuse, medical neglect, and a betrayal of human dignity. The Faces Behind the Numbers Among those finally returned was Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya , a beloved hospital doctor in Gaza, whose ordeal reveals the brutality that many are still too afraid to speak about. He arrived having lost more than 20 kg in just two months , with fractured ribs from interrogation , a worsening heart condition denied proper medical attention , and the scars of solitary confinement and torture. He is not alone. In the landmark “ Welcome to Hell ” report, 55 formerly held Palestinians shared chilling testimonies : starvation diets, savage beatings, r...

A Masterclass in Crime-Scene Management: Netanyahu’s Gaza Strategy

Let’s all take a moment to appreciate the sheer, unadulterated genius of Benjamin Netanyahu . In an era of bumbling, incompetent statesmanship , he is giving the world a masterclass in forensic foresight . His strategy in Gaza isn’t just about security ; it’s a brilliant, pre-emptive legal defense played out on the rubble of a civilization. We must, of course, understand the predicament . When your military is accused of potential war crimes—the kind that involve leveling entire city blocks, turning hospitals into mausoleums, and creating a generation of orphans—the number one priority isn’t a ceasefire or introspection. No, no. It’s custody of the crime scene. And what a crime scene it is ! Gaza is a sprawling , open-air archive of potential indictments. It’s littered with inconvenient evidence: the corpses under the rubble , the shrapnel-ridden schools , the mass graves . It’s a prosecutor’s dream and a war criminal’s nightmare . So, what’s a nation committed to its " purity ...

The World as Gaza: Necropolitics and the Calculus of Survival

  “ The ultimate expression of sovereignty resides in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.” — Achille Mbembe, “Necropolitics” There are philosophies that dissect history, and there are philosophies that bleed through it. Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics belongs to the latter — it is not an academic exercise, but a diagnosis of the world’s moral decay. In his words, modern sovereignty is no longer about governing life — it is about managing death . It decides who is allowed to breathe, who must suffocate, and who will exist in the space between. Nowhere is this calculus of death more visible, more technologically refined, and more ethically bankrupt than in Palestine . The siege of Gaza has transformed necropolitics from theory into geography — a place where the architecture of control and the arithmetic of survival intersect. The Right to Kill, the Duty to Let Die In Necropolitics , Mbembe extends Foucault’s biopower — the power to “...

The Orphans of Occupation: Israel’s Forgotten Militias After the Ceasefire

By Malik Mukhtar — ainnbeen.blogspot.com Two years of blood and rubble later , Israel’s war on Gaza has ended not with victory parades but with an exhausted exhale — and a fresh moral hangover. Among the wreckage, a strange question lingers like smoke after a fire: What happens to Israel’s “friends” inside Gaza — those Popular Forces , those hastily armed “ Anti-Terror” auxiliaries , those who bet their lives on serving the occupier’s script? The Frankenstein Files In the ruins of Rafah and Khan Younis, Israel’s internal intelligence service, the Shin Bet , built a small army of convenience — men with grudges, ambition, or desperation . They were told they were the future of Gaza : the new “anti-Hamas,” the “security partners,” the “civil order.” For months, they helped identify targets, pass intelligence, and even guard IDF-controlled zones. Some were given money, others weapons. A few were promised “ protection ” — a promise now as worthless as the rubble beneath their fee...