Dr. Vinay Asthana is an Associate Professor in the area of Finance. He earned his doctorate from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow. He also holds professional qualification in cost and management accounting (ICWA) and has cleared the National Eligibility Test conducted by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

He has diverse professional experience that ranges from entrepreneurship to government service. He returned to academics primarily because he was deeply fascinated by the mysterious nature of risk, particularly the risk of rare disasters. In his doctoral thesis he has employed the rare disaster framework, juxtaposed with the concept of spirit of capitalism, to explain several well-known asset pricing puzzles. He has presented his research papers at various national and international conferences in India and abroad. For his doctoral work he won the Marti Subrahmanyam Award at IIM Bangalore. His scholarly articles have been published in reputed journals such as Applied Financial Economics (Taylor & Francis) and Economic & Political Weekly (EPW). His research interests include disasters (in all forms: macroeconomic / financial / natural), asset pricing, cryptocurrencies, financial inclusion, health economics, and urban economics. Currently, he is completing a book on cryptocurrencies which aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the economics of cryptocurrencies. He is very passionate about financial inclusion and is working towards an initiative to promote financial literacy.

He teaches courses in the areas of financial management, corporate finance, banking, econometrics, mathematical economics, and strategic management.

Publications

Journal Articles

• “Disaster Risk Management: Shifting Paradigm” (2014), Economic and Political Weekly 49(39):17-20. This paper examines the conceptual underpinnings of disaster risk management in the context of the formulation of the successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA).
   
• “Street-smart Asset Pricing” (2013), Applied Financial Economics 23(17):1371-81
  This paper looks at consumption-based asset pricing from a novel perspective that seeks to find common ground between academic research and ‘street wisdom’, i.e. the popularly-held beliefs of the stock market participants and observers.

Refereed Conference Proceedings

• “Asset Pricing Puzzles and Street Wisdom” (with Sukumar Nandi)
  Third Annual General Business Summit Conference, Chennai (2011)
   
• “Asset Pricing with Spirit of Capitalism in a Rare Disaster Framework”
  Second Annual General Business and Finance Conference, Hutsville, Texas (USA) (2010)
   
• “Proposing the Fear and Greed Model of Asset Pricing”
  XVth Spring Meeting of Young Economists (SMYE), Luxembourg City (Luxembourg) (2010)

Articles in Popular Media

• “Kashmir Floods: Puzzling Disparities in Handling Disasters” (2014)
  Op-Ed article on Op Ed News (OEN): http://www.opednews.com/articles/Kashmir-Floods-Puzzling-D-by-Vinay-Asthana-Disaster_Disasters_Disasters-Wildfires_Flood-141009-847.html
   
• “Asset Pricing with Spirit of Capitalism in a Rare Disaster Framework” (2010)
  White paper on BNET (CBS Interactive): http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?tag=header%3Bheader-sec&docid=1896109