Welcome!

I am a senior lecturer of finance at the Department of Finance in Deakin Business School at Deakin University in Melbourne. Prior to joining Deakin, I worked as an Associate Professor of Finance at Lingnan College at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou and as postdoctoral researcher at the Derivatives Group at Hamburg University. I earned a PhD from the University of Bonn's Bonn Graduate School of Economics.

My research focuses on corporate finance, financial institutions and markets, and behavioural finance. In particular, I consider models of financial distress and bankruptcy. In corporate finance, I analyse the optimal risk-taking of distressed firms and the information outsiders can infer from it. Previously, I worked on the optimal use of derivatives to mitigate transaction risks in mergers and acquisitions. Regarding the risk management of financial institutions, my current focus is on the liquidity and bankruptcy risk of insurance companies that arise from the behavioural decision making of retail customers. Furthermore, I worked on behavioural explanations of why people use technical analysis despite its lack of profitability.

You can find more information about my research here, at ORCiD, my google scholar page, my Scopus profile, and on my SSRN page. If you like to make an appointment for my office hours, please select an open slot on my calendar.

Research Interests

Corporate Finance, Financial Institutions and Markets, Behavioural Finance.

Working Papers

• Credit Rating under Ambiguity
  2025, joint with Stefan Hirth, Jan Pape, and Alexander Szimayer.
  SSRN Working paper.
• Reference Health, Medical Spending, and Investment Decisions
  2025, joint with Chunli Cheng, Alexander Szimayer, and Peter Zweifel.
  SSRN Working Paper
• Bankruptcy Prediction with Incomplete Accounting Information
  2022, with Stefan Hirth and Alexander Szimayer.
  SSRN Working paper.

Publications and Accepted Papers

• The Information Value of Distress
  joint with Stefan Hirth and Alexander Szimayer.
  Management Science, 2024, 70(1), pages 78–97.
  Published version, SSRN Working Paper
• Surrender Contagion in Life Insurance
  joint with Chunli Cheng, Aidin Miri Lavasani, and Mick Schaefer.
  European Journal of Operational Research, 2023, 305, pages 1465–1479.
  Published Version, SSRN Working Paper.
• The Effect of Risk Aversion and Loss Aversion on Equity-Linked Life Insurance with Surrender Guarantees
  The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2020, 87(3), pages 665-687.
  Published version.
• Skewness Preference and the Popularity of Technical Analysis
  joint with Sebastian Ebert.
  Journal of Banking and Finance, 2019, 109, Article 105675.
  Published version, SSRN Working Paper.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: Collar Contracts
  joint with An Chen.
  Journal of Risk, 2015, 17(4), pages 101-133.
  Published version, SSRN Working Paper.
• The Effect of Secondary Markets on Equity-Linked Life Insurance Contracts with Surrender Guarantees
  joint with Jing Li and Alexander Szimayer.
  The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2014, 81(4), pages 943-968.
  Published version.

Contact/Impressum

Dr. Christian Hilpert, M.Sc.
Senior Lecturer of Finance
Office: LB4.106
Department of Finance, Deakin Business School, Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway, 3125 Burwood, Victoria, Australia

Email: Christian Hilpert