Saturday, April 19, 2014

Evidence-based asset management




There is a lot to learn from other sciences on how to better conduct research in finance. There should be be more formal use of the research pyramid shown above. 

One of the key methods used in medical sciences in evidence-based meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is the analysis of analysis. When a researcher explores multiple studies on the same subject to find patterns, he is conducting meta-analysis.  The review of multiple testing of the same subject can be employed to provide better insights. When a finance researcher does a literature search on a topic such as the carry trade, he is conducting an evidence based analysis. When he compares all of the statistics, time periods, and methodologies used to generate the results from these studies, he would be doing the work meta-analysis without having to conduct the research from scratch. This may not be a substitute for the actual research but it provides clear direction on where to find good results. This may be one of the best ways to find new ideas and improve on existing decision-making. 

Finance is hard pressed to do controlled trials, but the research pyramid employed in other sciences can be a good framework to serve as a research foundation.

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