Dr. Avdis studies the economics of information, with a focus on financial markets. Within the wave of innovations that Artificial Intelligence, Data Analysis, and Computer Science bring to Finance, he is interested in three main questions:
• To what extent can machines replace humans in financial markets? The rise of robotic advisors and algorithmic trading suggests that Artificial Intelligence could upend the financial industry, and yet it remains unclear whether machines can (or should) go beyond number-crunching tasks without human supervision.
• Is the recent trend of cryptographic applications in finance economically valuable? If so, how do such applications compare with traditional financial assets? If not, how should computer scientists direct their future efforts on the subject in a productive way?
• How does data abundance affect markets? Data, however big, contain noise; people have limited ability to process information; and the barriers to catching public attention are much lower now than before the internet. Given the dizzying array of media that can disseminate information, how do we encourage those that improve market efficiency, and how do we curb the rest?