Commerce Professor Robert Webb Tapped as Fulbright Researcher

Robert I. Webb, a professor at the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, will research capital market issues at the University of Wollongong in Australia as a Fulbright Scholar.

“This is a research award, so no teaching is involved,” Webb said. “The intended research project examines the impact of capital flight on housing prices and different approaches to dealing with the impact.  This is an issue that has affected Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and a variety of other countries.”

Webb, the Paul Tudor Jones II Eminent Research Professor and Martin J. Patsel Jr. Eminent Research Professor of Commerce, specializes in studying speculative markets, with a focus on how differences in market structure – or the way financial markets are organized – affect the behavior of financial market prices. He also studies how traders make decisions and how noninformational factors affect financial markets. He is currently researching the impact of high-frequency trading on financial market prices, latency and behavioral finance.

“I applied for the Fulbright Scholar award because I wanted to spend a concentrated block of time on a research project that lies in the intersection of theory, practice and policy and work with Australian colleagues with similar interests,” Webb said. “I will share the results of my research with my students and colleagues. I believe that this experience should also promote the globalization of the McIntire School of Commerce and the University of Virginia.”

Webb, who will be going to Australia in February 2024, said the experience will allow him to deepen his ties within Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

“My research has been largely empirical in nature and has focused on issues of interest to academics, practitioners and policymakers alike,” he said. “My intended research project fits that description perfectly.”