Portrait of Zirui Wang, a Finance Ph.D. student at UT Austin, pictured in November 2023. He is wearing a white striped shirt and glasses, and has a focused, confident expression. Zirui has black hair and is looking directly at the camera.

Zirui Wang

PhD Student in Finance at UT Austin

Welcome to my website! I am a fifth-year Finance Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. My research interests include Forensic Finance, Financial Regulations, Fintech, Real Estate, and Climate Finance.

Before coming to UT Austin, I earned a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.

Google Scholar
Curriculum Vitae

Research

1. Are Crypto Anti-Money Laundering Policies Effective?

with John M. Griffin and Kevin Mei

Presentations: CEAR-CenFIS Conference (scheduled); JOIM Conference (scheduled); NFA; SITE Financial Regulation; OSU, Seminar

2. The Rise in Insurance Costs for Commercial Properties: Causes, Effects on Rents, and the Role of Owners

with Minjoo Kim and Prateek Mahajan

Supported by funding from the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at Brookings

Presentations: AFA, PhD Poster (scheduled); AREUEA-ASSA Conference (scheduled); SFA (scheduled); Boca Finance and Real Estate Conference (scheduled); FMA (scheduled); UT Dallas Fall Finance Conference, PhD Poster; MRS; Deakin; UT San Antonio, Seminar; Baruch-JFQA Climate Finance Conference, PhD Poster (won Best Poster Award)

Teaching

Instructor

  • Investment Management (Undergraduate)

    • UT Austin: Summer 2024

Teaching Assistant

  • Corporate Finance Theory (PhD)

    • UT Austin: Fall 2025

  • Advanced Corporate Finance (MBA)

    • UT Austin: Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025

  • Empirical Methods in Asset Pricing (PhD)

    • UT Austin: Fall 2024

  • Advanced Corporate Finance and Investment Theory (MSBA)

    • UT Austin: Fall 2024

  • Investment Management (Undergraduate)

    • UT Austin: Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

  • Microeconomics (Undergraduate)

    • UC San Diego: Fall 2020, Winter 2021

  • Post-Relational Data Models (Undergraduate)

    • UC San Diego: Fall 2020

Select student comments:

  • "Zirui did great throughout the semester, definitely one of my top 5 TAs during my college career."

  • "Zirui was definitely the most organized/ helpful amongst all of the TAs."

  • "He was always available for questions and responded to my emails promptly."

  • "I just wanted to say thank you SO much for the extra time and help you poured into me these past few weeks. It really help me understand the material and prepare as best I could for the final. I appreciate your patience, your composure, and your understanding!"

  • "I appreciate all your efforts and hard work in helping us students learn more while preparing for exams. Your office hours for Exams 2 and 3 were a catalyst in understanding my mistakes and learning from them for the Final. I hope you can continue to be a TA and continue helping to foster learning in finance for students."

  • "I really appreciate Zirui working to put together the exam reviews, even if it was difficult to wrangle the students together. Those really helped especially when he walked through the problems step by step and tried to go deeper by connecting conceptual questions to calculations."

  • "Zirui and I debated some of my free–response answers on the first two exams. Although we sometimes had differing opinions, he was always receptive to what I was saying and looked to explain his perspective in the best way possible."

  • "really appreciated his help over email and office hours, even though he was super busy behind the scenes organizing the course. also really enjoyed his presentation of his own research!"

Reading Groups

  • Forensic Finance

    Wednesdays at 1:00 PM (2024)
    Moontower Cafe in Rowling Hall

    We have scheduled weekly paper presentations, which will continue until the end of the semester. Professor John M. Griffin and Sam Kruger will also join us! Looking forward to seeing you there!

    Weekly Schedule

  • Real Estate Finance

    Thursdays at 3:30 PM (2024)
    GSB 3.106

    We have one paper presentation each week till the end of the semester. Professor Sheridan Titman, Laura Starks, Jonathan Cohn, and Caitlin Gorback will join us as well!

    Weekly Schedule