‘Financial markets: are they epistemically efficient?’ by Lisa H. Herzog

17:00 CET, 25 January 2022 - Phinance Online Seminars & Centre for PPE - University of Groningen

The Efficient Market Hypothesis popularized the picture according to which financial markets are real-time mirror of the economy. They are automatically epistemically efficient because all epistemic inefficiencies would be removed by savvy arbitrageurs by incorporating all publicly available knowledge. This would justify the financial market’s central role in economic and public life.

Lisa argues against this picture: heterodox economists, economic sociologists, and practitioners have provided insights that lead to a very different account of what happens in financial markets. Lisa maintains that epistemic efficiency should be understood as a principle (maybe one among others) for the design and regulation of financial markets. In particular, she argues that instead of assuming that financial markets should be deregulated as much as possible to process knowledge efficiently, we should ask which regulation is needed to achieve something like epistemic efficiency, or at least to prevent the greatest obstacles to it.

This meeting of the Phinance Online Seminars discusses Lisa’s thesis with contributions from Melissa Vergara Fernández (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Joakim Sodenberg (University of Gothenburg) and Lisa herself, which is followed by an open debate.

‘Financial markets: are they epistemically efficient?’

17:00 Lisa Herzog (University of Groningen)

17:40 Discussants:

Melissa Vergara Fernández (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Joakim Sandberg (University of Gothenburg)

18:00 Debate

Chair: Emiliano Ippoliti (Sapienza University of Rome)