New Trends in Asset Pricing, Market Microstructure, and Risk Management

Dear Colleagues,

Following the 2008 global financial crisis up until the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, our global markets have experienced an unprecedented rise in financialization along with the introduction of new asset classes (such as digital currencies), which are becoming more ubiquitous in our daily life (such as investing apps, social media, and other such platforms). In addition, and according to the International Monetary Fund, we have seen countries' public debts rise at a significantly higher rate relative to their GDP estimates (https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2025/05/29/debt-is-higher-and-rising-faster-in-80-percent-of-global-economy). While factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to this, there are lesser-known factors as well, such as the rise in the size of private credit markets and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) (see, for example, https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/financial-stability-report-20250425.pdf).

These trends have played a significant role in the financial engineering of new asset classes, financial services, investment assets, banking and lending solutions, and other such capital market offerings. Many of these services and products were virtually unheard of before and during the 2008 financial crisis, and, while innovative, it is important to understand that their risk structures are not yet fully understood.

The aim of this Special Issue of Risks is to create a multidisciplinary discussion platform and to invite scholars to debate novel and critical questions that extend our knowledge within the areas of asset pricing, market microstructure, and risk management. This Special Issue focuses on new trends and cutting-edge methodological techniques within these areas and welcomes original research that focus on topics including, but not limited to, following issues:

• Decentralized finance (DeFi), blockchain technology, and cryptocurrencies.
• FinTech innovation and its effects on financial market structures.
• Macroeconomic risk and asset risk–return characteristics.
• Financial contagion.
• Investor psychology and behavioral finance.
• Information asymmetry and price discovery.
• Liquidity risk and market stability.
• Algorithmic and high-frequency trading (HFT).
• Dark pools and market fragmentation.
• Volatility and asset price stability.
• Modeling market order flows and order types.
• Impact of so-called 'whale' investors on financial markets.
• Derivatives markets and their microstructures.
• ESG-type investing strategies.
• AI and machine learning in asset pricing and risk management.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Dimitrios Koutmos
Guest Editor

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• asset pricing
• market microstructure
• risk management
• FinTech
• cryptocurrencies
• financial contagion
• behavioral finance
• information asymmetry
• high-frequency trading
• volatility
• artificial intelligence (AI)
• liquidity risk
• derivatives