Alexander Smith

I am studying for an MSc in Advanced Economics and Finance at Copenhagen Business School, following a BSc in International Business and Politics.

The MSc blends advanced study in industrial organization, macroeconomics and finance with training in advanced quantitative methods.

My BSc focused chiefly on political economy, economics, corporate finance, political philosophy and political science, and organization and strateg. I undertook elective study in econometrics, machine learning, investment finance, and sustainable finance.

I primarily work quantitatively, using Python, R, and Stata for empirical analysis. I also have experience with qualitative and comparative historical methods.

Academic interests

I am particularly interested in:

  • Socioeconomic network structures emerging from frictions regarding search, switching, transaction costs, contracts, law, cognition, worldviews, and expectations,
  • Network-structural asymmetries producing markets that are 'imperfect' by construction, rather than frictionless in ideal theory but distorted in practice,
  • How networks constrain outside options and information flows, and thereby generate not only rents but also base values, dependencies, and power,
  • Power's effects on policy transmission, inflation, and the possibility space of economic reform,
  • How market power underpins asset values fundamentally, but also reduces financial markets' efficiency and complicates macroprudential policy,
  • Agents suffering power on product or labour markets but also being invested in assets capitalizing the same power,
  • How to distinguish financial markets' recursive responses to themselves from their responses to the wider economy,
  • What all the above implies for structural transitions, particularly decarbonization.

Selected work

Pricing power from expectations and market frictions in U.S. gasoline retailing

Empirically investigating inflation expectations and retailer scarcity, and how the two interact to shape prices and price pass-through asymmetry. This was my undergraduate thesis.

Python notebooks

Teaching

Prepared and delivered classes for International Business and Politics undergraduates at Copenhagen Business School. I taught the history and philosophy of politics, political economy, and economics. Class topics included classical political economy, institutional networks, economic growth, imperialism, financial crises, and climate economics.

Research assistance

Research involving socioeconomic network structures and their relation to expertise and received wisdom. Copenhagen Business School.

Background

Before moving formally into economics and finance, I worked across management, operations, client-facing and internal communications, design and editing, and business consulting.

I have fifteen-plus years of experience working with organizations, clients, and multidisciplinary teams.

Miscellanea

Beyond the economy, I am interested in complex systems generally, cognition both biological and artificial, philosophy of mind, political philosophy, and these topics' overlap. I previously participated in the Centre for Philosophy of AI at the University of Copenhagen.

I enjoy art cinema and literature, and I spend too little time on both. I play guitar semi-professionally, freelance. My favourite colour is International Klein Blue. I play average games of chess and go.