IES :: PhDr. Jiří Kukačka Ph.D.

Position: Assistant Professor
Field of interest: Financial Econometrics, Behavioral Finance and Macroeconomics, Heterogeneous Agent Models, Cryptoassets
Membership: Internal, Macroeconomics and Econometrics

Contact

Office: 406 IES, 247 UTIA
Email: jiri [DOT] kukacka [AT] fsv [DOT] cuni [DOT] cz
Phone:
Personal web pages: https://ies.fsv.cuni.cz/en/staff/kukacka
Available: by appointment via email, please, WED 13:30-15:00, or we can schedule a Meet call

More information

Syllabi

CV

Organisation Memberships

European Economic Association, Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, Society for Computational Economics, CFEnetwork, The Czech Econometric Society

Education

2011 - 2016: Ph.D., Economics, Charles University, Dissertation Thesis available here
2012: PhDr. (M.Phil. equivalent), Economics, Charles University
2008 - 2011: Mgr. (M.A. equivalent), Economics, Charles University
2008 - 2009: University of Bath, School of Management, United Kingdom
2005 - 2008: Bc. (B.A. equivalent), Economic Theories, Charles University

Summer Schools and Academic Workshops:
2020: Foundation course on DSGE Modelling (6-day summer course by the University of Surrey)
2020: Behavioral Macro and Complexity (5-day summer course by the Timbergen Institute)
2012 - 2016: WEHIA Doctoral Summer School (Paris, Reykjavik, Beijing, Nice, Castellon)
2015: First Ancona-Milano Summer School on AB Economics (Ancona)
2015: CEF SCE 2015 Workshops on ABM and Compexity (Taipei)
2014: Agent-Based Modeling teaching course (Leipzig)
2013: 4th Summer School of the European Social Simulation Association (Hamburg)

Job history

Academic Staff:
2017+: Assistant Professor, IES FSV UK, see my: Google Scholar Citations, SSRN, ResearchGate, RePEc, ORCID, Scopus Author ID, WoS ResearcherID
2023: Research Visit, University of Florence, Italy, working with Leonardo Bargigli
2023: Invited Research Visit, Hamburg Institute of International Economics, Germany, invited by Michael Berlemann, working with Stephen Sacht, Reiner Franke
2022: Invited Research Visit, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, Institute of Economics, invited by Francesco Lamperti
2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022: Research Visits (7 weeks), Kiel University, Germany, Department of Economics, working with Stephen Sacht, Reiner Franke, Piotr Zegadlo
2016: Postdoctoral Research Visit (3 months), University of California, Irvine, Department of Economics, working with William Branch
2016 - 2017: Postdoctoral Fellow, IES FSV UK
2013 - 2015: Member of the Center for Doctoral Studies, IES FSV UK
2013+: Member of the Department of Macroeconomics and Econometrics, IES FSV UK

Researcher:
2021+: Research Associate, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Information Theory and Automation, Dept. of Econometrics
2016 - 2021: Postdoctoral Researcher
2013 - 2016: Ph.D. Candidate

Teaching:
2022+: JEB109 - Econometrics I
2018 - 2023: JEB147 - Behavioral Economics and Finance
2017+: JEM062 - Introductory Econometrics
2015 - 2017: JEM005 - Advanced Econometrics
2011+: JEM116 - Applied Econometrics
2011 - 2015: JEB110 - Econometrics II

2009: National Economic Council (NERV), assistant to Prof. Michal Mejstrik, economic analyses of particular financial topics during the preparation of the National Crisis Packet

Extra activities

2021 - 2023: representative of the Faculty in Rada vysokych skol
2021+: Member of the Springer Nature Business & Economics Editorial Board
2022 - 2023, 2018 - 2021, 2014 - 2016: Academic Senator, Pedagogic Chamber, AS FSV UK (member of following commissions: legislative 2014+ [chair 2019 - 21, 2022 - 23], development 2019 - 21, economic 2014 - 2019)
2018+: Member of the Prague Economic Papers Editorial Board
2013+: Member of the Disciplinary Committee FSV UK (alternate)
Refereeing: Review of Economic Dynamics, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (2x), Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2x), Quantitative Finance (2x), Financial Innovation, Macroeconomic Dynamics, Economic Modelling, Computational Economics (5x), Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (4x), Springer Nature Business & Economics, Advances in Complex Systems, Physica A, Review of Behavioral Finance, Metroeconomica, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, International Review of Economics and Finance, PLOS One, e-journal Economics, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (5x), Prague Economic Papers (3x), Czech National Bank Working Papers
2007 - 2012: E-klub IES FSV UK
2009 - 2011: Charles University International Club

Awards and prizes

Successes of my students:
- Tatiana Bielakova: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2023, admitted to ETH Zurich
- Alexander Macejovsky: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2022
- Eric Zila: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2021, admitted to the Uni of Amsterdam
- Katerina Havelkova: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2020
- Renata Wojnarova: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2020
- Sergey Bolshakov: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2020
- Jan Vainer: Deloitte Outstanding Thesis Award 2018
- Aneta Pintekova: Josef Vavrousek Award FSV UK 2017
- Jan Polach: MSc in Finance at the London School of Economics 2016
- Filip Stanek: Dean's Award for an extraordinarily good bachelors diploma thesis 2014

IES Alumni Chair, 2019
Selected to represent the Czech Republic in the prestigious 6th Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting on Economic Sciences that hosted 18 Nobel Laureates in Economics, 2017

Selected grant support (see my CV below for a complete list):
- team member: Czech Science Foundation, research grant 23-06606S "Deep dive into decentralized finance: Market microstructure, and behavioral and psychological patterns", 2023 - 2025
- principal investigator: Czech Science Foundation, research grant 20-14817S "Linking financial and economic agent-based models: An econometric approach", 2020 - 2022
- team member: Charles University, PRIMUS project 19/HUM/017 "Behavioral finance and macroeconomics: New insights for the mainstream", 2019 - 2021
- team member: Czech Science Foundation, research grant 17-12386Y "Multifractality analysis in finance: Extreme events, portfolio and risk management, and market complexity", 2017 - 2019
- participant: European Commission, Collaborative EU Project FinMaP, "Financial distortions and macroeconomic performance: Expectations, constraints and interaction of agents", grant agreement No. FP7-SSH-612955, 2014 - 2016
- participant: Czech Science Foundation, Excellence project P402/12/G09720 "Dynamic Models in Economics", 2013 - 2018

Teaching and students' awards:
Golden Course Faculty Teaching Award (best master level economic course) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Nachvatalova, and Buliskeria), 2021
Golden Course Faculty Teaching Award (best master level economic course) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Brunova, and Nevrla), 2020
Best Course Teaching Award (master level) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, and Nevrla), 2020
Golden Course Faculty Teaching Award (best master level economic course) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Cech, and Nevrla), 2019
Golden Course Faculty Teaching Award (best master level economic course) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Cech, and Nevrla), 2018
Best Course Teaching Award (master level) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Cech, and Nevrla), 2017
Best Course Teaching Award (master level) for Advanced Econometrics (with Barunik, Krehlik, Zeynalov, and Kraicova), 2015
Best Course Teaching Award (master level) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, Baxa, Cech, and Rusnak), 2014
Golden Course Faculty Teaching Award (best master level economic course) for Applied Econometrics (with Horvath, Barunik, and Baxa), 2012
Dean's Award for an extraordinarily good masters diploma thesis, 2011
RWE Scholarship 2009 - 2011
Dean's Award for an excellent Final State Exam performance and for an extraordinarily good bachelors diploma thesis, 2008

Topics for supervision

Bachelor theses

Students are welcome to contact me via email and consult the supervision of Bachelor theses related to fields of my research interest (the maximum load of supervised Bachelor theses is around 2 for 2024/2025):

1) Behavioral Finance (empirical econometric approach). See interesting videos here and here, read about behavioural biases, patterns, and anomalies here, and download comprehensive e-handbooks here, here, here, and here. Are these patters still detectable? Are they detectable at other markets than where discovered?
2) Cryptocurrencies/Cryptoassets (empirical econometric approach). Read this overview article and see our recent paper. Do various well-known behavioral finance biases and patterns also play a role in cryptocurrency markets?
3) Agent-Based Modelling in economics and finance, for motivation read this nice article. Implementation/extension/analysis/estimation of a simple financial heterogeneous agent model (handbook 2006, handbook 2018), or a macroeconomic agent-based model in NetLogo or any other software (R, Julia, etc.). See this textbook with example codes and these interesting videos for more inspiration: finance, macro.
4) Agentization of a theoretical model into the discrete agent-based domain. Do both result in the same findings? Examples: Cournot oligopoly with simple learning, cartels. Implementation in NetLogo or any other software (R, Julia, etc.). See this textbook with example codes for more inspiration.
5) Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scoring and investing (empirical econometric time series analysis of financial data). See our recent paper on the CSR topic.

Currently supervised Bachelor theses:
Radim Kral: Application of an Agent-Based Model to the Pension system in the Czech Republic
Jakub Cakan: Behavioural biases in the Czech sports betting market
Ji Jia Xin: ESG score and corporate financial performance in controversial industries

Master theses

Students are welcome to contact me via email and consult the supervision of Master theses related to fields of my research interest (the maximum load of supervised Master theses is around 2 for 2024/2025):

1) Simulation-based estimation methods in financial- and macro-econometrics (simulated MLE, simulated MM, Bayesian approaches). Analysis of performance, horse race comparison. Check our recent papers here and here or see this handbook 2018 chapter.
2) Behavioural New Keynesian model (calibration, estimation, theoretical extension). Read this article for more motivation about bounded rationality in macro and check this textbook (or an older version) or our recent paper.
3) Heterogeneous Agent Modelling in finance (estimation, application to the cryptocurrency market, horse race of a ZOO of models). See a nice article here for more motivation, check related chapters in handbook 2006 and handbook 2018, or see our recents papers here and here.
4) Behavioral Finance (advanced empirical econometric analysis of a selected topic). Read about behavioural biases, patterns, and anomalies here, and download comprehensive e-handbooks here, here, here, and here. Can one reasonably profit on this knowledge? Can we develop behavioral trading strategies to ensure abnormal returns?
5) Cryptocurrencies/Cryptoassets (advanced empirical econometric approach). Read this overview article and see our recent paper. Do various well-known behavioral finance biases and patterns also play a role in cryptocurrency markets?
6) Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scoring and investing (advanced empirical econometric analysis of financial data). See our recent paper on the CSR topic.

Currently supervised Master theses:
Eric Zila: Surrogate Modelling Extension of the Simulated Method of Moments
Ondrej Karlicek: Simulation-based estimation methods in financial econometrics - analysis of performance and comparison