A number of Lancaster University Management School students have been successful in their funding bids as part of the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership Competition 2019. This annual competition awards studentships to support doctoral students across the whole range of Management School topic areas, with Lancaster entrants facing strong competition from students at DTP partner institutions Manchester, Liverpool and Keele.

We are delighted to confirm that the following awards were achieved in the standard studentship competition:

Accounting and Finance

• 1+3 award (Shifan Yu)

Shifan Yu will start his PhD in October 2019 together with Prof Ingmar Nolte and Dr Sandra Nolte working on “Jump Robust Volatility Estimation and Jump Tests using Renewal Processes”. Shifan’s research project will exploit the point process nature of high-frequency datasets to i) construct jump robust volatility estimators and derive their asymptotic properties, ii) develop jump test statistics and inference procedures, and iii) apply these tests to assess jump risk premia, that investors require as compensation to held very “jumpy” assets.

Economics

• +3 award (Amanda De Pirro)

Amanda is working in the field of international trade, exploring trade disputes and quality upgrading in China.

• 1+3 award (Hannah Smith)

Hannah is working in the fields of Behavioural Economics and Environmental Economics, looking into the potential for behavioural and experimental economics to enhance climate change mitigation policies.

Business & Management

• +2 award for a current Organisation, Work and Technology student (Rosie Harrison).

Rosie’s topic surrounds ‘how do paid carers enact emotional management through their care practices? She is building on significant practical experience to undertake her research and has already shown excellent progress in her first year of studying here at Lancaster.

In addition,Professor Mark Shackleton, Dr Sandra Nolte (LUMS) and Dr Harald Lohre (Invesco Quantitative Strategies, Frankfurt, Germany) successfully secured an ESRC CASE NWSSDTP studentship with approved AQM status late January 2019, on a project entitled “Optimal rebalancing strategies for efficient asset pricing factor investments”. This project aims to fill the gap between optimal rebalancing and the interplay with transaction cost modelling by theoretically investigating optimal levels for various factor strategies and empirically devising transaction cost models that aid and guide their practical implementation. This latest project will complement an already long lasting fruitful collaboration between Invesco and LUMS, which has witnessed the co-supervision of 3 doctoral students so far, and the joint organisation of 2 conferences over the past 5 years.

Director of LUMS Doctoral Programmes, Dr Marian Iszatt-White said: “We are very pleased with the outcome of this year’s CASE and standard ESRC studentship competition. It has taken considerable work by both the students and their supervisors to produce the kind of applications that are needed to be successful against such strong competition. “

We would like to congratulate Shifan, Amanda, Hannah and Rosie on their fantastic achievements, and we look forward to hearing more about the progression of their research as this develops.