Academic portfolio · Financial econometrics

Christoph Hirt

PhD Candidate in Economics and Econometrics at the University of St. Gallen, working at the intersection of financial markets, investor sentiment, and machine learning.

Portrait of Christoph Hirt

St. Gallen
Switzerland

01 · Profile

About my academic work

I am a PhD Candidate in Economics and Econometrics in the Graduate Program in Economics and Finance at the University of St. Gallen, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Francesco Audrino at the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics.

I hold an M.A. in Quantitative Economics and Finance from the University of St. Gallen, as well as a BSc in Economics and a BSc in Environmental System Sciences: Economics from the University of Graz.

My research interests lie at the intersection of financial econometrics, particularly volatility forecasting, and investors' sentiment, applying state-of-the-art machine learning methods.

View academic background →

03 · Recent work

Rencent paper

Swiss Finance Institute · 2026

Memes to Markets: Causal Evidence on WallStreetBets and Robinhood Trading

A causal machine learning approach with Enrico Giovanni De Giorgi and Jule Schüttler. An earlier version was presented at the 18th International Joint Conference CFE-CMStatistics in London, UK.

View paper on SSRN