[Forum SIS] Assegno di ricerca-Post doct position in Perugia

[stanghel a stat.unipg.it]

POST-DOCTORAL POSITION IN STATISTICS

A post-doctoral position in Statistics at the Department of Economics,
Finance and Statistics of the University of Perugia is available.

TITLE

Statistical Analysis of Large Firm Indicators of Sustainable Development
with Graphical Models.

QUALIFICATIONS AND ASSESSMENT GROUNDS FOR APPOINTMENT

The candidate should have completed, or be near to completion of,
a PhD in Statistics. Knowledge of structural equation models and graphical
models will be an advantage.

JOB DESCRIPTION

For large companies, the link between sustainable performance and stock
returns has been analysed by a multitude of researchers and evidence for
positive, negative as well as neutral
relationship has been provided. The aim of the project is to develop a
quantitative analysis of the relationship between sustainable development
performance criteria and  some measures of their business success by means
of multivariate statistical models.

Sustainable development is a multidimensional construct which involves
different aspects, stemming from social responsibility, corporate
governance, environment responsibility.  These three concepts are
difficult to measure and are captured by the so called Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) scores.  The multidimensional nature of the
sustainable investment can be summarized by means of latent variables
which are measured with errors by the CSR scores. The latent variables
affect, in turn, the performance criteria.

Statistical methods which deal with latent constructs exist, for the
continuous case,
since a long time under the name of structural equation models
(Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1989). Most recent contributions on the topics
involve the so called graphical models (Lauritzen, 1996), a class of
probabilistic models that describe the conditional independence structure
between random variables by a graph. In the first part of the project,
application of graphical models to investigate the relationships between
the different indicators will be illustrated on data sets provided by KLD,
which is the most widely  recognized  rating agency both in the academic
community and in the investor community in US.

Since the KLD dataset provides, for each company, measurements of the
observable variables repeated on consecutive years, it will then be
possible to explore also  the dynamic underlying the process. Although
dynamic  applications of graphical models with latent variables exist,
this part of the literature is not
well-established. The second part of the project will involve a
theoretical investigation of the properties of the dynamic formulation of
model, such as a the identificability conditions, together with the
development of suitable techniques for estimating and validating  the model.

The project is financed by MISTRA Project on Sustainable Investments
(http://www.hgu.gu.se/item.aspx?id=12251) and is a part of a larger
project that aims at finding a systematic way to answer the important
issues linking Sustainable Investment to Sustainable Development.

SALARY

Successful applicant will receive a net salary in accordance with standard
salary levels for equivalent positions in Italy (approx. Euros 15,600).

HOW TO APPLY

Applicants should download application form at the web page

http://www-b.unipg.it/~contric/scripts/listaassegni.php

and follow the instructions there in. Please note that the deadline is
JANUARY, 16th 2010.

INFORMATION

For information please contact

Elena Stanghellini at the email address:
elena.stanghellini at stat.unipg.it




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Prof. Elena Stanghellini
Dipartimento di Economia Finanza e Statistica
Sez. Statistica - Via A. Pascoli - C.P. 1315 Succ. 1
06100 Perugia (Italy)

Tel +39 075 5855229 or 5855242
Fax +39 075 5855950

email: elena.stanghellini at stat.unipg.it
home page: http://www.stat.unipg.it/stanghellini
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