The Department of Wealth Creation investigates how financial markets are shaped by data, behavior, expectations, and risk — combining theoretical depth with empirical precision in the spirit of Theoria cum Praxi. Our work is guided by the conviction that understanding modern markets requires integrating multiple perspectives simultaneously, rather than treating quantitative, behavioral, and macroeconomic dimensions in isolation.

Our research is organized around four interconnected themes. We develop novel methods for analyzing large and alternative datasets to uncover sustainable sources of financial returns, translating unstructured data into implementable investment signals. We investigate the drivers of risk premia across asset classes and how factor exposures can be dynamically managed under changing market conditions. We examine the psychological and cognitive traits that shape investor decision-making — particularly how behavioral biases emerge under stress and how they can be identified and accounted for in investment strategy. We also study how expectations are formed by households, firms, and monetary institutions, and how systematic forecasting errors feed back into asset prices and policy outcomes.

What distinguishes Wealth Creation is its genuinely interdisciplinary character. Professors Alberto Rossi, Andreas Neuhierl, Francesco D’Acunto, and Michael Weber each bring a distinct focus — spanning financial data science, factor investing, neuro-finance, and expectations research — but collaborate across these themes in a shared intellectual environment. Through this integration, Wealth Creation connects the quantitative frontier of financial economics with behavioral and macroeconomic insight to advance both research and real-world investment practice.