Nir Vulkan
Associate Professor of Business Economics
- nir.vulkan@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Saïd Business School
University of Oxford
Park End Street
Oxford
OX1 1HP
Profile
Nir is a leading authority on fin tech, e-commerce and market design, and on applied research and teaching on hedge funds. Alongside his role at Saïd Business School, Nir is also a Fellow of Worcester College and a member of the Oxford Man Institute for Quantitative Finance.
In 2003 Nir wrote one of the leading texts on the microeconomics of e-commerce The Economics of E-Commerce: A Strategic Guide to Understanding and Designing the Online Marketplace. In 2013, Nir edited, with Al Roth and Zvika Neeman, The Handbook of Market Design. The handbook contains a selection of the latest research in the growing field of market design, and draws on Vulkan’s interest and expertise in markets, both virtual and those confined to particular geographical locations. He is particularly interested in how lessons from successful and unsuccessful markets can be learned and transferred to different environments. Part of the book examines issues raised by the fact that the internet is now the preferred platform for most markets, and the wide choice this gives consumers. He also examines markets linked to geography where participants have little choice.
More recently in 2020 Nir Chaired the Banking and Finance Committee on Ethical AI, which made recommendations to the European President and Parliament. Nir was also a member of the Insurance Committee on Ethical AI.
Nir has a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from Tel Aviv University and gained a doctorate in Economics at University College, London, where he was awarded the Dean Scholarship for excellence in PhD studies. He became a Lecturer at Bristol University in 1997, and in 2001 moved to Saïd Business School. He was the Executive Director of the Oxford Centre for Entrepreneurship between 2009 and 2011 and the co-founder and Director of OxLab, a laboratory for social science experiments, both at Saїd Business School.
Expertise:
- Fin Tech
- Algorithmic Trading
- Market design
- E-commerce
- Entrepreneurship
- Hedge funds
Research
Nir’s current research focuses on fin tech, market design, personality role in financial behaviour, and entrepreneurship. Recent discussion papers include:
- Herding in Equity Crowdfunding (with Thomas Astebro, Manuel Fernandez and Stefano Lovo)
- Be careful what you ask for: Fundraising strategies in equity crowdfunding (with Thomas Hellmann and Ilona Mostipan)
- Gender in start-up financing (with Thomas Hellmann and Ilona Mostipan)
Watch a video of Nir discussing his research on equity crowdfunding.
Publications
Herding in equity crowdfunding(opens in new window)
- Journal article
- RAND Journal of Economics
The evolution of equity crowdfunding: insights from co-investments of angels and the crowd(opens in new window)
- Journal article
- Research Policy
Do small firms pay to stay? An experimental investigation(opens in new window)
- Journal article
- Journal of Marketing Behavior
Naked aggression: Personality and portfolio manager performance(opens in new window)
- Journal article
- PLoS ONE
Engagement
Nir engages widely with industry.
He acts as a consultant to technology companies and has developed software for specific applications within companies.
He has developed models widely used in e-commerce, trading and hedge funds.
Nir travels extensively to give seminars and talks and to participate in conferences, and has spoken at numerous universities in Europe, the Middle East and the USA.
He acts as referee for a number of academic journals on economics.
Watch Nir's interview with CNBC about Apple's new iPad and classroom software.
Read a recent interview with Nir on the growth of Robo-Advisers.
Teaching
Nir created the first UK course on fin tech in 2016 which runs annually as an MBA and EMBA elective.
Nir created the first UK course on fin tech in 2016 which runs annually as an MBA and EMBA elective. Before that he wrote and developed the core Managerial Economics course for the MBA and EMBA programmes.
He has also been involved in designing and developing the Entrepreneurial Project and now runs this course. He supervises DPhil and MPhil students. He has also taught a popular MBA elective course on hedge funds and trading, and a course on e-commerce.
Nir believes that students learn by doing, and therefore games, role-plays and projects form a large part of his courses. The Managerial Economics course features a trading game, while both this course and the Entrepreneurial Project draw on current case studies, which are discussed and analysed by students.
Nir is also the course convenor for two new online programmes: Fintech and Algorithmic Trading.
