About
Professor Kilian Huber is a leading figure in the fields of Economics and Finance, specializing in corporate finance, asset pricing, and empirical finance. His research focuses on understanding the determinants of firm investment, the cost of capital, and the role of discount rates in economic decisions.
Research topics
- Economics
- Computer Science
- Business
- Labour economics
- Financial system
- Econometrics
- Finance
- Macroeconomics
- Monetary economics
- Physics
Selected publications
American Economic Review · 2025-05-30 · 17 citations
articleSenior authorWe construct a dataset of firms’ discount rates (i.e., required returns to capital) and perceived cost of capital using corporate conference calls. The relation between discount rates and the cost of capital is far below the one-to-one mapping assumed in standard theory, as it takes many years for changes in the cost of capital to be incorporated into discount rates. This pattern leads to large and time-varying discount rate wedges that affect firm investment. Moreover, increasing discount rate wedges can account for the recent puzzle of “missing investment.” Cross-firm variation in market power and riskiness explains the evolution of wedges. (JEL D22, E43, G12, G31, G32)
Code for: Corporate Discount Rates
ICPSR Data Holdings · 2025-04-30
datasetOpen accessSenior authorThe code in this replication package creates the figures and tables in the paper and the appendix of "Corporate Discount Rates."
National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-09-01 · 9 citations
reportOpen accessNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment · 2024-08-05 · 2 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingThis article reports on the development of an optimization framework for charged particle optics design (CPOpt). The optimization part of CPOpt involves a custom-developed Python multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), which incorporates NSGA-II to optimize for multiple objectives, such as particle transmission and beam spot size. The simultaneous tuning of different types of parameters, such as electrode voltages and geometrical parameters, is facilitated by creating isolated groups of parameters. Modeling of parameter configurations is done with the charged particle optics simulation tool SIMION and a ZeroMQ-based communication interface enables a fully automated interaction with the MOGA. The post-optimization analysis part of CPOpt provides standardized and broadly applicable methods to identify suitable solutions, based on the outcome of the optimization part. Global sensitivity analysis, based on the Delta Moment-Independent-Measure in combination with dedicated Latin hypercube sampling, allows higher-level information about parameter sensitivity and robustness to be extracted, as well as effective randomized local optimization. Demonstrated on a two-lens system with intermediate aperture, the CPOpt framework effectively optimized the two conflicting objectives of reduced beam spot size and increased transmission at the detector plane for 12 parameters, covering both electrode voltages and geometrical parameters. The optimization process was performed within less than 11h on a workstation, while all the simulations required for the post-optimization analysis took another 7h. The additional computational effort for the post-optimization analysis can contribute to deliver solutions with high performance and stability.
National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-03-01 · 7 citations
reportOpen accessSenior authorWe show that firms' nominal required returns to capital (i.e., their discount rates) are sticky with respect to expected inflation.Such nominally sticky discount rates imply that increases in expected inflation directly lower firms' real discount rates and thereby raise real investment.We analyze the macroeconomic implications of sticky discount rates using a New Keynesian model.The model naturally generates investment-consumption comovement in response to household demand shocks and higher investment in response to government spending.Sticky discount rates imply that inflation has real effects, even absent other nominal rigidities, making them a distinct source of monetary non-neutrality.At the same time, sticky discount rates make the short-term interest rate less effective at stimulating investment.Optimal monetary policy focuses on inflation expectations and permanently lowers the long-run inflation target in response to expansionary shocks, even when shocks are temporary.
Acta Astronautica · 2024-05-19 · 2 citations
articleOpen accessInduced magnetospheres form around planetary bodies with atmospheres through the interaction of the solar wind with their ionosphere. Induced magnetospheres are highly dependent on the solar wind conditions and have only been studied with single spacecraft missions in the past. Without simultaneous measurements of solar wind variations and phenomena in the magnetosphere, establishing a link between both can only be done indirectly, using statistics over a large set of measurements. This gap in knowledge could be addressed by a multi-spacecraft plasma mission, optimized for studying global spatial and temporal variations in the magnetospheric system around Venus, which hosts the most prominent example of an induced magnetosphere in our solar system. The MVSE mission comprises four satellites, of which three are identical scientific spacecraft, carrying the same suite of instruments probing different regions of the induced magnetosphere and the solar wind simultaneously. The fourth spacecraft is the transfer vehicle which acts as a relay satellite for communications at Venus. In this way, changes in the solar wind conditions and extreme solar events can be observed, and their effects can be quantified as they propagate through the Venusian induced magnetosphere. Additionally, energy transfer in the Venusian induced magnetosphere can be investigated. The scientific payload includes instrumentation to measure the magnetic field, electric field, and ion-electron velocity distributions. This study presents the scientific motivation for the mission as well as requirements and the resulting mission design. Concretely, a mission timeline along with a complete spacecraft design, including mass, power, communication, propulsion and thermal budgets are given. This mission was initially conceived at the Alpbach Summer School 2022 and refined during a week-long study at ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility in Redu, Belgium.
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01
articleOpen accessSSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01
articleOpen accessSenior authorTracing the International Transmission of a Crisis Through Multinational Firms
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 11 citations
articleOpen accessSenior authorTracing the International Transmission of a Crisis Through Multinational Firms
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01
articleOpen accessSenior author
Frequent coauthors
- 13 shared
Elise Wright Knutsen
- 13 shared
Ülrich Flörke
Paderborn University
- 13 shared
Claire Baskevitch
Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique
- 13 shared
J. Borner
- 13 shared
Sonja Herres‐Pawlis
Forschungszentrum Jülich
- 12 shared
Davide Manzini
University of Pisa
- 10 shared
Dirk Kuckling
Paderborn University
- 10 shared
A. Döring
Education
- 2011
Ph.D., Economics
University of Chicago
- 2007
M.A., Economics
University of Chicago
- 2005
B.A., Economics
University of Zurich
Awards & honors
- Dawson Family Professor in the Wallman Society of Fellows
- NBER Research Summary on Discount Rates
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