News
Recent research by David Alaminos, M. Belén Salas-Compás, and Manuel Á. Fernández-Gámez investigates whether Bitcoin can exert speculative pressure on fiat currencies, particularly the US Dollar, during episodes of financial stress. Using a novel hybrid model that integrates ARIMA-EGARCH, and Wavelet Neural Networks (WNN)—with additional enhancement through a Quantum Recurrent Neural Network (QRNN)—the authors analyze dynamic interactions between BTC/USD and EUR/USD exchange rates. The focus is on episodes of speculative attacks and short squeezes, moments characterized by abrupt currency movements and… 
Laura Guitart Tarrés, tenured professor in the Department of Business, director of the UB Chair of Family Business, and until now Academic Vice-Dean, has taken office as Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Barcelona in a ceremony held at the historic building on 19 June 2025. Guitart Tarrés is a researcher with the Business Research Group (SGR 0361), head of the Teaching Innovation Group on Learning Tools in Business Management (G·IDEA), and co-director of… 
On May 13th, the Extraordinary Doctorate Awards were presented to recognize the best doctoral theses of the 2022–2023 academic year. We are proud to announce that two of our PhD in Business alumni, Dr. Laura Sáez and Dr. Juan José Vidal, received this prestigious award. Dr. Laura Sáez was awarded for her thesis “The emerging landscape of Social Media Data Collection: anticipating trends and addressing future challenges”. Her research analyzes how social media platforms are used to collect personal data… 
A comprehensive new study by our researchers Miguel Guillén-Pujadas, David Alaminos, Emili Vizuete-Luciano; and Ángela M. Callejón-Gil (Universidad de Málaga) and José María Merigó-Lindahl (University of Technology Sydney) offers a deep dive into nearly five decades of research on ethics in trading. Using a bibliometric analysis of over 3,000 academic publications from 1976 to 2022, the study maps key trends, top contributors, and emerging topics in the field. The results reveal a clear surge in academic interest—particularly around high-frequency trading,… 
A new study by our researcher Josep Maria Argilés-Bosch, alongside with Josep Garcia-Blandon (IQS School of Management) and Diego Ravenda (TBS Business School) investigates the impact of female board directors on firms’ cost of debt, using unique research setting in Norway. While prior studies suggest that female directors contribute to lower financing costs due to their risk-averse decision-making, this study finds no significant relationship between increased female board representation and firms’ borrowing costs. The research leverages Norway’s 2006 board gender… 
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has published a ranking of the 10,000 most outstanding Spanish and foreign female scientists conducting research in organizations in Spain, aiming to increase the visibility of their work. A total of 402 researchers from the University of Barcelona are included, 25 of whom belong to the Faculty of Economics and Business. Five researchers from the UB Business School are featured in the ranking, led by Mercè Bernardo, followed by Esther Hormiga, Montserrat Crespí, Pilar… 
A study titled “Banking FinTech and Stock Market Volatility: The BIZUM Case”, written by our researchers Emili Vizuete Luciano, Ana Maria Gil Lafuente and our PhD alumnus Laura Arenas provides key insights into how the adoption of disruptive technology by incumbent banks affects stock price volatility. This research examines the 2016 adoption of BIZUM, a Spanish real-time digital payment solution, by major incumbent banks. Using a GARCH-M GED approach, the study finds that the implementation of BIZUM led to a… 
A recent study named “Quantum computing for market research”, written by our adjunct professor and PhD in Business alumni Laura Sáez-Ortuño, our researchers Rubén Huertas-García and Santiago Forgas-Coll from the Department of Business at the University of Barcelona, Javier Sánchez-García (Universitat Jaume I) and Eloi Puertas-Prats (UB, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science), examines the transformative potential of quantum computing (QC) in market research, a field increasingly challenged by the complexities of the digital ecosystem. Unlike classical computers, QC uses… 
A recent study by Vesna Vlaisavljevic (UB Business School), Bart Van Looy (KU Leuven), Marcelina Grabowska (JRC- European Commission), Catherine Lecocq (Ghent University), and Koenraad Debackere (KU Leuven) examines the growth of biotech clusters worldwide from 1978 to 2015. This research, named “Growth of biotech clusters over several decades through pioneering, variety and entrepreneurial science”, published in the prestigious journal Nature Biotech, highlights how biotechnology has transitioned from fundamental science to various applications, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and materials, thereby creating… 
The UB Business School welcomed 23 new students to the MSc in Business Research programme this year. Most of them come from Asia (56%), others from Europe (26%), and the remaining ones come from America (9%) and Africa (9%). Altogether, there are 8 nationalities represented in this class, with an average age of 26 years old. This diverse group of people will now pursue an official one-year programme that provides students with advanced training in the research skills, techniques, and…