Professor Ralf Zurbrugg

• Biography/ Background

  Profile

  Ralf Zurbruegg is the Associate Head of Research within the Adelaide Business School and the Discipline Leader for Business Analytics. He has held a number of administrative appointments within the University including as Dean of the Business School, Head of School of Accounting and Finance and Deputy Dean, as well as serving on academic board for several years. He is also heavily engaged with industry and the community at-large. Ralf is a Justice of the Peace for South Australia, an endowment fund manager for two not-for-profit institutions, serves on advisory boards to firms in the funds management industry, and was also previously a director of a quantitative investment solutions company. He regularly consults for industry, particularly for the finance sector, as well as being an expert witness on a number of state and federal court cases. Ralf also serves on the editoral board of several academic journals, is the academic director of the International Centre for Financial Services  and has appeared on television and been quoted in national newspapers over the years.

  Industry and Community Engagement

  Ralf regularly engages and collaborates with industry and the community, having a substantitive track record of working with a wide range of parties, ranging from assisting Indigeneous communities with financial education to working with government departments, industry bodies and private companies. He has collaborated with the Financial Services Council of Australia, the Australian Taxation Office, ANZ Bank, Vanguard, Apostle Funds Management, ABP Pension Fund (Netherlands), Pearl Insurance (U.K.), Swiss RE:, the Self-Managed Superannuation Fund Association, HomeStart, CPA Australia, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, Department of Treasury and Finance, The Dieri Aboriginal Corporation, The World Bank Group, Chartered Financial Analysts Institute (Singapore) and the Shenzen Provincial Government (China) to name a few. 

  Impact

  As an example of the impactful research Ralf has been part of, please read a case study here on Homeownership Affordability. Also, learn more about the impact Ralf's research has had on the Self-Managed Superannuation Funds industry here.

• Qualifications

  After graduating with a degree in monetary economics from the London School of Economics, Ralf completed a Masters and then a PhD in financial econometrics from Manchester Business School. Ralf also holds a Graduate Diploma in Higher Education Studies from the University of New South Wales.

• Teaching Interests

  Ralf is involved in providing expert finance and investment education to members of company and investment boards who do not have a finance background. Most recently, he has been working with The Dieri Aboriginal Corporation.  

  At University, Ralf teaches Managerial Finance and Business Analytics to MBA students while overseeing the Business Analytics programs offered by the Business School.

• Research Interests

  Ralf is a multi-disciplinary researcher whose interests span the breadth of the business field, publishing in accounting, finance, management and marketing journals. He also researches housing markets (with a particular interest in housing affordability) and develops computational intelligence applications for the financial markets.

  Current projects that Ralf is working on include:

  • Cyber-security
    • Data breach security laws and how they impact company decision-making

  • Adoption of Artificial Intelligence
    •  The impact of AI on firm performance.   

  • Climate Change and Sustainability
    • Watch Ralf talk about one of his research works on Greenwashing at faculti.net
    • Impact of climate change on insurance contracts (with the Department of Agriculture, Water and the  Environment)
      • Co-Winner of the 2022 Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Award for Innovation and Excellence in Climate Action for this work
    • Just Transitions and Stewardship (with the Electric Vehicle Council and Battery Stewardship Council) 
    • Carbonwashing / carbon accounting
      

  • Top Management Team Performance
    • What characteristics of TMT members make a good team?

   

   

• Research Funding

  Ralf has held multiple Category 1 grants, including several ARC Discovery and Linkage grants, plus regularly engages in contract research for industry.

   

  Research Grants & Contract Research 

  ABP Pension Fund. Development of Evolutionary Computation Processes to aid in Stock Selection Picking, with Thuy To, Martin Schmidt, Zbigniew Michalewicz, , 2005-07.

  Financial Services Council. Reporting Methods for Superannuation Performance, with C. Cheong, 2008. 

  ARC-Linkage, Survival of Australia's Family Farms: Capital Raising and Credit Access, with Stringer, R and Canil J. Partner: ANZ Bank, 2009-2013.

  HomeStart Finance. Examination of the Impact of HomeStart loans on the South Australian Mortgage Market, with Mihaylov, G. 2010-2013.

  ARC-Discovery, The Implications for Greying Australia of International Property Market Inter-Linkages, with Gerlach, R. and Wilson, P., 2010-2011.

  ARC-Discovery, Computational Intelligence Methods for Financial Applications, with Z Michalewicz, 2010-2012.

  ARC-Linkage, The Adequacy and Sustainability of Self-Managed Superannuation Funds: Governance, Performance, Asset Allocation, Fee Structure and Compliance, with Yawson, A. and Tretola, J., Partner: SMSFA, 2010-2013. 

  ARC-Linkage, Funding our future: perceptions of the value of financial planning advice, with C Plewa, J Sweeney, and Michayluk, D., Partner: Financial Services Council, 2012-2015.

  HomeStart Finance. Do HomeStart Loans improve homeownership rates in South Australia?, with G. Mihaylov, 2016-2017.

  EU Centre for Global Affairs. Signature research project on corporate governance in Asia, with D Boehe, 2015-2018.

  CPA Australia. Best Practice Governance in the Not-For-Profit Sector, with Coram, P., Kent, P and Yawson, A. 2019.

  SuperConcepts. SMSF Profile Questionaire Review, with G. Mihaylov. 2019

  Shenzhen Government Innovation Plan Grant. The application of artificial intelligence in financial portfolio management, with Ghandar, A. 2019-2020.

  Electric Vehicle Council and Battery Stewardship Council. Automotive Product Stewardship, with Dodd, T., Hoffmann, A. and Cheong, C. 2022.

  Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. Crop Insurance Participation and Moral Hazard, with Canil, J. and Mihaylov, G. 2022-2023.

  The World Bank. Ukraine Damage Needs Assessment, with Khomyn, M. 2023-2024.

  Self-Managed Superannuation Funds Association. Understanding Self-Managed Super Fund Performance, with Mihaylov, G. 2023.

• Publications

   

  Academic Publications

  Ralf has published in leading Financial Times (FT-50) businesss journals and other outlets, across a number of academic disciplines.

  In finance, this includes Review of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Corporate Finance and Journal of Banking and Finance. 

  In marketing, this includes Journal of Marketing and European Journal of Marketing.

  In machine learning, this includes IEEE Transactions in Evolutionary Computation and International Journal of Forecasting. 

  In real estate and housing, this includes Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and Urban Studies. 

  In insurance, this includes Journal of Risk and Insurance and Geneva Papers in Risk and Insurance.

   

  Selected Recent Publications

  Nguyen, T.M.L., Cheong, C., Truong, C. & Zurbruegg, R. (2023). Experience of a Job Loss and Analysts' Subsequent Performance. European Accounting Review

  Wasi, Md, Pham, T., & Zurbruegg, R. (2022). The impact of sovereign rating downgrades on systemic risk: An analysis of the sovereign ceiling policy. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting

  Obaydin, I., Zurbruegg, R., Hossain, M. N., Adhikari, B. K., & Elnahas, A. (2021). Shareholder litigation rights and stock price crash risk. Journal of Corporate Finance

  Cheong, C. S., Hoffmann, A. O. I., & Zurbruegg, R. (2021). Tarred with the Same Brush? Advertising Share of Voice and Stock Price Synchronicity. Journal of Marketing

  Obaydin, I., Zurbruegg, R., Brockman, P., & Richardson, G. (2021). The relative number of anti-takeover provisions and the market for corporate control. Journal of Financial Research

  Xu, L., Yu, C. -F. J., & Zurbruegg, R. (2020). The benefit of being a local leader: Evidence from firm-specific stock price crash risk. Journal of Corporate Finance

  Phan, H. L., & Zurbruegg, R. (2020). The time-to-maturity pattern of futures price sensitivity to news. Journal of Futures Markets

  Liu, C., Cheong, C. S., & Zurbruegg, R. (2020). Rhetoric, Reality, and Reputation: Do CSR and Political Lobbying Protect Shareholder Wealth against Environmental Lawsuits?. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis

  Jaroenjitrkam, A., Yu, C. -F. J., & Zurbruegg, R. (2019). Does market power discipline CEO power? An agency perspective. European Financial Management
  

  Tan, G., Cheong, C., & Zurbruegg, R. (2019). National culture and individual trading behavior. Journal of Banking and Finance

  Luo, J., Xu, L., & Zurbruegg, R. (2017). The impact of housing wealth on stock liquidity. Review of Finance

• Media Expertise

  Categories	Economics & Finance, Real Estate
  Expertise	Finance, Hedge Funds, Investment Banking

Entry last updated: Wednesday, 23 Aug 2023

To link to this page, please use the following URL:  https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/ralf.zurbrugg