Schmitt received the award during the European International Business Academy (EIBA) conference held in Helsinki, Finland. He also presented the winning paper Follow Me Home: Disentangling Differential Investor Reactions to Cross-Border Headquarters’ Relocations at the conference.
This work is co-authored with Martijn Boermans (De Nederlandsche Bank, DNB). In their study, the researchers investigate how investors react to announcements of cross-border relocations of a company’s headquarters. Some of their key findings are that investors, in particular household investors, suffer from a home bias and react emotionally to announcements of cross-border firm relocations away from the investors’ home country. Consequently, investors tend to divest heavily from firms that leave their home country which ultimately leads to a shift in the firms’ investor base.

In conjunction with the award, Schmitt has also been invited for a research stay at the Copenhagen Business School next year. During this time, he will give a research seminar for the local faculty and discuss potential research collaborations for the future.