Jiayi Balasuriya

Jiayi Balasuriya is a Lecturer in Finance at the Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire. They serve as Programme Leader for the MSc Finance and Investment Banking program and hold the Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Balasuriya's research focuses on Behavioral Finance, Experimental Economics, and Household Finance with particular attention to personality traits' influence on financial decisions, post-crisis deleveraging dynamics, and welfare retrenchment effects.

Education:

• PhD in Finance (Behavioural Finance) from Cass Business School, City University London
• MFin in Finance from Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow

Research Interests: Balasuriya explores how personality traits like extraversion and risk tolerance shape financial risk-taking behaviors, post-crisis household financial strategies, and the interplay between financialization and welfare policies. Their work combines experimental methodologies with spatial economic analysis to address contemporary issues in household finance and policy.

Key Research Trends: Recent publications analyze personality's role in pension decisions, spatial patterns of post-crisis deleveraging, and subsistence debt dynamics in austerity contexts. The 2025 study on risk-taking behaviors highlights novel methodologies in risk elicitation comparisons.

Awards:

• Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Advisory & Grants: Supervises postgraduate research in behavioral finance topics. Active in securing research funding through collaborative projects with institutions like the University of Glasgow and City University London.

Labs/Teams: Member of the Organisation, Markets and Policy Research Group and Business and Digital Research Group at Hertfordshire Business School, contributing to interdisciplinary financial policy analysis.