Francesco Franzoni

Francesco Franzoni is a Full Professor of Finance at the Faculty of Economics, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI Lugano). He also holds the position of Senior Chair at the Swiss Finance Institute and is a Research Fellow at CEPR. His academic leadership spans across multiple research centers including the Center for Economic and Political Research on Aging (CEPRA) and the Institute of Finance (IFin).

Professor Franzoni earned his PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002 and completed his Bachelor and Master degrees at Bocconi University. He joined USI Lugano in September 2007, establishing himself as a leading researcher in empirical asset pricing.

His research focuses primarily on Empirical Asset Pricing, with particular emphasis on institutional investors, ETFs, and hedge funds. Professor Franzoni has extensively studied how different types of institutional investors impact asset prices and market dynamics. His work spans across several key areas including information diffusion in financial markets, liquidity provision, and the competitive structure of asset management industries. His research has been published in top-tier finance journals including the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial Economics.

Professor Franzoni's recent publications demonstrate a consistent focus on ETFs and institutional investor behavior. His work often examines how market structure affects price formation, with particular attention to the growing influence of passive investing vehicles. His 2025 paper on "Intrinsic Value" addresses declining performance of value strategies, while his 2023 paper on "Competition for Attention in the ETF Space" explores market dynamics in the rapidly expanding ETF industry.

Professor Franzoni serves as an Associate Editor at the Review of Financial Studies since July 2024, reflecting his standing in the academic finance community.

At USI Lugano, Professor Franzoni teaches Capital Markets and Financial Modeling in the Master program and Empirical Asset Pricing in the PhD program, mentoring the next generation of finance professionals and researchers.