Gertjan VerdicktKU Leuven | ku leuven · Department of Accountancy, Finance and Insurance (AFI)
Gertjan Verdickt
Doctor of Financial Economics
My research interests include empirical asset pricing and economic history.
About
20
Publications
2,730
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
54
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am an Assistant Professor of Finance at KU Leuven. My research interests include empirical asset-pricing and economic history. I have published in several leading academic journals, such as the Explorations in Economic History, Journal of Economic History, and Journal of Empirical Finance.
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - February 2021
January 2019 - September 2019
September 2016 - September 2019
Education
January 2016 - June 2019
September 2014 - September 2015
September 2012 - September 2013
Publications
Publications (20)
We re-examine dividend growth and return predictability evidence using 165 years of data from the Brussels Stock Exchange. The conventional wisdom holds that time-varying dividend yield is predominately explained by changes in expected returns and that expected dividend growth is only weakly forecastable. However, we find robust dividend growth pre...
With two news-based measures on war, I document that managers mitigated war risk through dividend cuts, arguably to establish a war chest. Moreover, I find that companies postponed their initial public offerings and that foreign companies were more likely to delist after the onset of wars. Investors reacted negatively to the increase in war news co...
Using a novel, hand-collected dataset of U.S. life insurance companies during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19, we show that high-exposure firms charged higher prices on new policies vis-à-vis less exposed firms. Since the pandemic surprisingly increased mortality rates among young adults, we argue that insurers used product pricing as a risk mana...
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Public Works Administration loaned 46 railroads over $802 million between 1932 and 1939. The government’s goal was to decrease the likelihood of bond defaults and increase employment. Bailed-out railroads did not increase profitability or employment. Instead, they reduced leverage. Bailing out a railroad h...
We document the asset-pricing implications of the model-free option-implied dependence (MFID); a measure that exhibits information on linear and non-linear dependence between random variables. We show that stocks with high exposure to MFID generate significantly higher risk-adjusted returns in bad times. This is consistent with time-varying prefere...
The Société Générale de Belgique dominated the Belgian economy for more than 150 years. It invested for the long run in a portfolio of listed and private companies as the world's first universal bank (pre-1935) and as holding company (post-1935). This paper presents a quantitative analysis to better understand the reversal in the company's prominen...
The Spanish Second Republic was a unique experiment of democratization in interwar Europe, which was characterized by extreme levels of political uncertainty. We find that investors responded to shifts in uncertainty by selling stocks in favor of government bonds—a behavior known as flight-to-safety. Additionally, we find that political uncertainty...
Een blik uit de geschiedenis leert dat beleggers moeten oppassen voor recessies. Sinds de oprichting van België tonen we aan dat een crisis kan een serieuze klap in zijn gezicht, maar daarnaast het ook veel mogelijkheden biedt. Beleggen in een crisisperiode, wanneer de beurzen sterk lager staan tegenover de voorgaande jaren, kan hem zeker geen wind...
No. We document two empirical facts for the U.S. life insurance sector during the 1918-19 Influenza pandemic. First, we find no significant differences among U.S. insurers' profitability after 1918. Second, there were fewer insurers in distress after the pandemic outbreak. Using synthetic control methods, we argue that the demand increase for new l...
The Spanish Second Republic was a unique experiment of democratization, which was characterized by extreme levels of political uncertainty in interwar Europe. In response to this uncertainty, we find that investors sold stocks in favor of government bonds. In fact, political uncertainty had a negative effect on the aggregate stock market index and...
In 1836, Société Générale created the world's first closed-end equity fund, Mutualité Industrielle. It promised to be a diversification tool targeted towards less-wealthy investors. We confirm that the trust's returns were indeed better than returns on synthetic portfolios such investors had access to. However, it never became a commercial success....
In 1836, Société Générale created the world’s first closed-end equity fund, Mutualité Industrielle. It promised to be a diversification tool targeted towards less-wealthy investors. We confirm that the trust’s returns were indeed better than synthetic portfolios to which such investors had access to. However, it never became a commercial success. T...
With two news-based measures on war, I document that managers mitigated war risk through dividend cuts, arguably to establish a war chest. Moreover, I find that companies postponed their initial public offerings and that foreign companies were more likely to delist after the onset of wars. Investors reacted negatively to the increase in war news co...
No. We document two empirical facts for the U.S. life insurance sector during the 1918–19 Influenza pandemic. First, we find no significant differences among U.S. insurers’ profitability after 1918. Second, there were fewer insurers in distress after the pandemic outbreak. Using synthetic control methods, we argue that the demand increase for new l...
If fertility behavior is closely related to business cycle behavior, there should be evidence in financial markets. I document that a decrease in fertility growth negatively forecasts real excess returns, several months ahead. More interestingly, this effect is not yet captured by demographic, business cycle or confidence metrics. The relationship...
We re-examine dividend growth and return predictability evidence using 165 years of data from the Brussels Stock Exchange. The conventional wisdom holds that time-varying dividend yield is predominately explained by changes in expected returns and that expected dividend growth is only weakly forecastable. However, we find robust dividend growth pre...
Projects
Projects (3)
All papers that deal with the Great Depression, in any way, shape, or form, starting from 1920 up to 1940.
These papers deal with life insurance markets in a historical setting with clear implications for today.
PhD dissertation of "Speculative Asset Prices". It contained three chapters: (i) dividend growth and return predictability (co-authored with Jan Annaert and Marc Deloof), (ii) the effects of war risk on managerial and investor behavior and (iii) is fertility a leading indicator for stock returns?
Advisors for the PhD: Jan Annaert and Marc Deloof (University of Antwerp).
