Alexandru Barbu

• Programme: PhD in Finance

MS (Barcelona Graduate School of Economics)

BS (Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies)

Alexandru Barbu is a fifth year PhD candidate in Finance at London Business School. His research interests are in financial intermediation, insurance and household finance. In ongoing work, Alexandru looks at how financial intermediaries provide aggregate risk insurance to households. He studies how differences in historical regulation have shaped the availability of private-sector provided market risk insurance across countries, as well as how gaps in consumer protection regulation have allowed insurers to recover losses in guaranteed return products after the financial crisis. In previous work, Alexandru has also looked at how career concerns incentivise risk taking in delegated asset management, and the implications for asset prices. His work on aggregate risk insurance has received financial support from the AQR Asset Management Institute.

Alexandru holds a MSc in Economics from Barcelona Graduate School of Economics at Pompeu Fabra and a BSc in Economics from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Sciences. He was also a visiting PhD student at the University of Chicago Booth. Prior to joining London Business School, Alexandru worked in the Research Department at the Deutsche Bundesbank and the Monetary Policy Directorate at the European Central Bank.