On Monday, March 11, 2024, WU Vienna held a promotio sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae ceremony in its Ceremonial Hall to recognize the outstanding academic achievements of a special WU graduate. Among other requirements, Maximilian Schleritzko has completed all of his WU programs with honors, successfully topping off his studies with a PhD degree. During the last 15 years, only three other WU graduates earned this distinction.

Rector Rupert Sausgruber, who accepted the graduate’s academic oath at the ceremony, extended cordial congratulations. “A graduation under the auspices of the Federal President is a unique, inspiring event held to duly celebrate the extraordinary achievements of our graduate. It’s an honor to be part of this special moment, in particular because these graduations are quite rare at WU,” Rector Sausgruber said.

About the graduate

Maximilian Schleritzko, aged 29, started his academic trajectory with an excellent school leaving exam at the BG/BRG Waidhofen a.d. Thaya upper secondary school. At WU Vienna, he first earned a bachelor's degree in economics and social sciences with excellent grades. He then went on to complete the WU Master's Program in Quantitative Finance, from which he also graduated with honors in August 2018. To further deepen his academic studies, in September 2018 Maximilian Schleritzko  embarked on a PhD program at the Vienna Graduate School of Finance (VGSF), a renowned graduate school located at WU Vienna that offers advanced doctoral-level academic training in cooperation with the Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) and the University of Vienna. He completed his PhD degree in finance in May 2023 with a dissertation entitled “Essays on Expectation Formation in Financial Markets.” Among other aspects, Maximilian Schleritzko’s dissertation looked at how central bank communications influence the financial markets. Together with his co-authors, Schleritzko used text analysis techniques to show that the ECB’s communications about different areas of the economy trigger reactions in different segments of the financial market. He also investigated the formation of household expectations regarding the stock markets and gold prices and compared theoretical models with empirical data on the expectations of households. Together with his co-author, Schleritzko was able to show that, contrary to previous assumptions held in the literature, the expectations of households about stock markets might be consistent with certain theoretical models after all. Households’ expectations about gold prices, however, do not seem to match the common models used in the literature, indicating a diversity of actors with heterogeneous expectations in the gold market, which may, in turn, potentially have an impact on gold prices.

Promotio sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae

The promotio sub auspiciis, or graduation with Federal President’s Honors, is regulated in the Federal Act on the Awarding of Doctoral Degrees Under the Auspices of the Federal President. The prerequisite for a “Promotio sub auspiciis Praesidentis rei publicae” is a graduation with honors from all levels of upper secondary school, the passing of the secondary school leaving examination with honors, completion of undergraduate and graduate degrees in which all areas of the bachelor’s and master’s examinations as well as the master’s thesis are graded with top marks (“excellent”), and completion of the dissertation and thesis defense examination with excellent grades. Everyone who graduates under the auspices of the Federal President also receives an honorary ring. Under a recent change of procedures, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen now awards these rings to all the Austrian graduates who meet the requirements during a single ceremony held in the Hofburg palace.