Welcome! I'm Beata Gafka. 

I am an Assistant Professor in Finance at the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario. In my research I focus on asset pricing and macro finance.

I received my PhD in Finance from the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford in June 2022. Before my doctorate degree, I obtained an MSc in Finance from Bocconi University and spent two years working in investment banking in London, England with a particular focus on the provision of client clearing and collateral solutions for derivatives trading. I also hold BA degrees in Finance and Economics from the Warsaw School of Economics.  

For more detail, click here: Curriculum Vitae 

Contact Information:

E-mail: bgafka@ivey.ca

Address: Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario

1255 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 0N1

Working papers

Sources of Return Predictability

with Pavel G. Savor and Mungo I. Wilson

We develop an approach to determine whether a particular predictor represents a proxy for fundamental risk. We build on the assumption that risk-based predictors should be linked to new information about economic conditions. We show that most predictors forecast returns on either days with macroeconomic announcements or the remaining days, indicating that sources of return predictability differ across predictors: few are driven by fundamental risk; most have other origins. We show that Shiller’s excess volatility is confined to non-announcement days, suggesting that the ability to forecast stock market’s noise component underlies much of the predictability documented in the literature. 

Presented:  2024 MFA (scheduled) • 2024 SWFA (scheduled) • 2024 AFA (scheduled) • 2023 World Finance & Banking Symposium (scheduled) • 2023 JFR European Symposium • 2022 FIRS • 2022 Adam Smith Workshop in Asset Pricing • 2021 EEA-ESEM • 2021 World Finance Conference • 2021 Saïd Business School Brown Bag Seminar

Mind the (trade) gap! Stock market implications of barriers to trade

The Brexit referendum disrupted global trade: the UK's exchange with the EU and numerous third countries would suffer. Relative stock prices reacted accordingly with the damage greater and longer-lasting for the UK than the EU. UK-focused manufacturing fared worst in both regions. The UK's EU-exposed services firms were also impacted – the market correctly expected December 2020 "no-deal" outcome for that sector. Third-country exposure attenuated the shock's impact on EU but not UK companies. Consequently, the UK zone factor underperformed the old-EU one by 20 percentage points between 2016 and 2019. Brexit exposure high-low portfolio explains 70% of the time-series variation in this underperformance. Overall, the results showcase the impact of leaving a free trade agreement on firm and country business risk.

Presented: 2024 SWFA (scheduled) • 2021 Saïd Business School Lunch Seminar • 2021 Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference • 2021 Eastern Finance Association Conference Doctoral Students Session • 2021 Southwestern Finance Association Conference • 2020 Saïd Business School Lunch Seminar • 2020 FMA Conference Doctoral Student Consortium • AEFIN 2020 PhD Mentoring Day • 2020 Saïd Business School Brown Bag Seminar

The Money Multiplier and Asset Returns 

with Anna Stepashova

We study the relationship between aggregate money balances and subsequent stock and bond returns. We find that levels of broad money multipliers (the ratios of broad money to narrow money) forecast future returns with a negative sign, while changes in these multipliers forecast returns with a positive sign. These findings indicate that levels of multipliers are pro-cyclical: they tend to be high at times of low expected returns. The money multipliers’ dynamics indicates changes in the volume of financial intermediation and the level of net leverage, consistent with credit-cycle theories of macroeconomic fluctuations. 

Teaching

Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario:

Saïd Business School, University of Oxford: