Professor of Quantitative Business Administration
Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich

Moussonstrasse 15 CH-8044 Zürich +41 (0)44 634 37 70 karl.schmedders[at]business.uzh.ch

Karl Schmedders has been a Professor of Quantitative Business Administration in the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology at the University in Zurich since 2008. In addition, he is a Visiting Professor of Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University in Evanston, U.S.A. 

Karl received a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University in 1996. After a two-year post-doc at the Hoover Institution, a think tank on the Stanford campus, he became an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and received tenure at Kellogg in 2005. He continued to work at Kellogg until his departure to Zurich. 

His research focuses on computational economics and finance. He applies numerical solution techniques to complex economic and financial models shedding light on relevant practical problems. He has published numerous research articles in international academic journals such as Econometrica, The Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Finance, and The Review of Financial Studies, among others. 

Karl was the area editor of the field «Computational Economics» at the INFORMS journal «Operations Research» from 2015-2017. He served as a co-editor of the Econometric Society Journal "Quantitative Economics" from 2013-2017. 

Karl has received numerous teaching awards at Stanford, Kellogg, and WHU, including the 1996 Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford University‘s most prestigious teaching award, and the 2002 L.G. Lavengood Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg. 

While ruefully non-athletic himself, Karl is a passionate football (soccer) fan and a member of the club FC Bayern München as well as the German National Team Fan Club.

Full CV

Higher-Order Effects in Asset-Pricing Models with Long-Run Risk, in The Journal of Finance, 2018, 73(3), 1061-1111, (with Walt Pohl and Ole Wilms). doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12615

Optimal and Naive Diversification in Currency Markets, in Management Science, 2016, Management Science, 63(10), 3347-3360, (with Fabian Ackermann and Walt Pohl). PDF

Asset Prices with Temporary Shocks to Consumption, in Journal of Economic Dynamics & Control, 2016, 69, 152-178, (with Walt Pohl and Ole Wilms). Semantic Scholar

Margin Regulation and Volatility, in Journal of Monetary Economics, 2015, 75, 54-68, (with Johannes Brumm, Michael Grill, and Felix Kubler). JSTOR

A Polynomial Optimization Approach to Principal–Agent Problems, in Econometrica, 2015, 83, 729-769, (with Philipp Renner).
[“Supplement to ‘A Polynomial Optimization Approach to Principal–Agent Problems’,” Econometrica Supplemental Material, 83, dx.doi.org/10.3982/ECTA11351.]

Collateral Requirements and Asset Prices, in International Economic Review, 2015, 56, 1-25, (with Johannes Brumm, Michael Grill, and Felix Kubler). doi.org/10.1111/iere.12092

Finding all Pure-Strategy Equilibria in Dynamic and Static Games with Continuous Strategies, in Quantitative Economics, 2012, 3, 289-331, (with Ken Judd and Philipp Renner). doi.org/10.3982/QE165

Optimal Rules for Patent Races, in International Economic Review, 2012, 53, 23-52, (with Kenneth L. Judd and Sevin Yeltekin). JSTOR

See full list of publications