Hello, I'm Stephen, an aspiring finance professional.
I am a third year doctoral student in finance at the University of Melbourne, Australia. My primary research interests focus on the political economy of finance, networks, and machine learning.
Information regarding my education and research can be found below or in my curriculum vitae.
2022-Present
Phd, Finance
University of Melbourne, Australia
comment: currently in progress.
2021-2022
BCom Honors, Finance
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Achievement: First Class Honors
Dissertation: What Matters for Global Equity Market Integration?
Final Grade: A+
Abstract: The degree and channels of global equity market integration over time have remained elusive relative to their growing importance. We quantify the yearly integration of 49 countries over 2002-2020 and identify potential channels using a range of country-level variables. Intriguingly, there have been reversals and declines in the level of equity market integration. Our empirical evidence suggests that while internal development, external restrictions, foreign currency exposure and political risk are associated with market integration, institution efficiency and market access are not. Both population growth and corporate tax rate exhibit a unique positive relationship with market integration. In addition, we find that the investigated channels of integration accessible to developed and emerging nations are almost mutually exclusive.
Dissertation: What Matters for Global Equity Market Integration?
Final Grade: A+
Abstract: The degree and channels of global equity market integration over time have remained elusive relative to their growing importance. We quantify the yearly integration of 49 countries over 2002-2020 and identify potential channels using a range of country-level variables. Intriguingly, there have been reversals and declines in the level of equity market integration. Our empirical evidence suggests that while internal development, external restrictions, foreign currency exposure and political risk are associated with market integration, institution efficiency and market access are not. Both population growth and corporate tax rate exhibit a unique positive relationship with market integration. In addition, we find that the investigated channels of integration accessible to developed and emerging nations are almost mutually exclusive.
2019-2021
BCom, Finance
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Average Grade: A
Activities: Student Representative for Econ151, Learning leader and Tutor.
Employment: High school tutor at Tutoring for Excellence.
comment: Completed in two years by overloading (5 courses per semester and 2 per summer school). In addition to highly analytical accounting and finance courses, I selected useful general education and elective courses such as Critical Thinking (PHIL105) and Reading/Writing/Text (ENG121G). During this time, I also invested my time into R and Python, along with obtaining IBM data science and advanced data science certificates.
Activities: Student Representative for Econ151, Learning leader and Tutor.
Employment: High school tutor at Tutoring for Excellence.
comment: Completed in two years by overloading (5 courses per semester and 2 per summer school). In addition to highly analytical accounting and finance courses, I selected useful general education and elective courses such as Critical Thinking (PHIL105) and Reading/Writing/Text (ENG121G). During this time, I also invested my time into R and Python, along with obtaining IBM data science and advanced data science certificates.
How does convolutional neural networks predict stock returns?
Stephen Dixon, Qi Zeng
Work in progress presented at FIRN 2024, NZFM 2024.
Abstract filler