PUBLICATIONS |
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with Heitor Almeida, Ruidi Huang, and Ping Liu
Management Science, forthcoming.
Abstract
This article studies how mandating employers to provide health insurance of a minimum quality and the associated increases in health insurance premia affect firm employment and performance. Using hand-collected firm-level employee health insurance data around the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), we show that the PPACA is associated with a significant increase in health insurance premia for employees in company-sponsored health insurance plans. In response, employers with greater exposure to the PPACA reduce employee enrollments in their health insurance plans to a larger extent after the law's enactment. Our analysis suggests that employers achieve this reduction in enrollment by shifting employment composition from full-time employees to part-time, temporary, or seasonal workers, who are not covered in employer-sponsored health insurance plans. Furthermore, we find no evidence of deterioration in performance at companies more exposed to the increase in health insurance premia. Overall, our findings illustrate how firms adapt to and mitigate cost increases associated with regulatory changes through strategic labor practices.
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with Heitor Almeida and Ruidi Huang
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, forthcoming.
Abstract
This article documents a trend of declining flexibility in share repurchase policies over the last four decades. We show that repurchases have become particularly sticky for firms with repurchase programs in place. We also exploit the additional inflexibility within existing repurchase programs to show that repurchase stickiness can have real effects for firms. Using the 2008 financial crisis as a shock to firms' ability to raise capital, we find that firms with ongoing share repurchase programs ending after December 2007 reduced investment, employment, and R&D spending by more than similar firms with programs ending before the onset of the crisis.
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with Michael Jung, Yiqing Lu, and Hong Wu
Management Science, forthcoming.
Abstract
This study examines how winning a significant industry award affects the behavior of finance professionals. Focusing on sell-side equity analysts and utilizing a novel dataset from Institutional Investor on analyst rankings, we employ a regression discontinuity design that compares the post-award research outputs and behavior of third-place, all-star analysts with those of first runner-up analysts who barely miss the distinction. Our results show that third-place all-star winners are more optimistic in their forecasts and recommendations compared to first runner-up analysts after winning the award, and market reactions to their forecast revisions are stronger. The third-place winners also receive higher priority during earnings conference calls and experience better career outcomes. Our evidence is consistent with award-winning analysts leveraging their increased reputation and market influence to generate more trading commissions and career benefits. The broader inference of our findings is that finance professionals who win a significant award are likely to become more, rather than less, strategic.
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with Feng Cao, Rongli Yuan, and Hong Zou Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Volume 60, Issue 2, March 2025, pp. 874–909.
Online Appendix 
We use a novel experiment in China to examine the effects of having a quasi-official investor own a small number of shares on specific firm outcomes. We find that relative to control firms, pilot firms experience an increase in dissenting votes from independent directors, a reduction in tunneling and earnings management activities, and an improvement in merger performance. Independent directors questioned by the quasi-official shareholder in activism events subsequently lose board seats in the director market. Overall, our results shed light on a new mechanism for enhancing the protection of minority shareholders.
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with Dongmin Kong, Chen Lin, and Shasha Liu Management Science, Volume 71, Issue 2, February 2025, pp. 1074–1101. Online Appendix
Government ownership of financial intermediaries is pervasive around the world. In this study, we examine the impact of the common government ownership between the brokerage and listed firms on the information production role of brokerage firms. We show that affiliated analysts issue more optimistic recommendations on stocks of firms controlled by the same government entity that controls their brokerage firms. This optimistic bias is particularly strong during periods of economic shocks. Our study demonstrates this by utilizing additional tariff impositions and tariff exemptions during the U.S.-China trade war as exogenous negative and positive shocks, respectively. We also find that stocks recommended by politically affiliated analysts underperform those recommended by independent analysts, suggesting that the optimism is driven by conflicts of interest rather than advantageous information. Furthermore, we find that sophisticated investors perceive the potential bias and incorporate it into their trading. Consistent with an exchange of favors story, politically affiliated brokerage firms receive more underwriting allocation during the issuance of local government debt, and governments subscribe for more shares during seasoned equity offerings by these connected brokerage firms.
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with Da Huo, Bo Sun, and Mingzhu Tai Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Volume 59, Issue 5, August 2024, pp. 2375–2398. Online Appendix
Adverse market events can affect credit supply not only by hurting financial fundamentals but also by changing the risk-taking behaviors of individual decision makers. We provide micro-level evidence of this individual decision-making channel in the U.S. mortgage market. We find that mortgage application rejection rates are more sensitive to foreclosure intensity when loan officers are more exposed to foreclosure news, despite the same housing market and bank fundamentals. Loans originated from the affected branches have lower ex-post default rates, consistent with higher lending standards being applied. In the aggregate, this effect results in tighter credit supply during housing market downturns.
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with Po-Hsuan Hsu, Yiqing Lü, and Hong Wu Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Volume 59, Issue 2, March 2024, pp. 652–689. Online Appendix
In this paper, we show that firms can become conservative in innovation when their directors face job insecurity. We find that after the staggered enactment of majority voting legislation that strengthens shareholders' power in director elections, firms produce fewer patents, particularly exploratory patents, and fewer forward citations. This effect is stronger for directors facing higher dismissal costs or threats and for firms with greater needs for board expertise and is mitigated by institutional investors' expertise in innovation. Overall, our results suggest that heightened job insecurity induces director myopia, which leads to a reduction in investment in risky, long-term innovation projects.
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with Paul Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov, and Emily Weisburst Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Volume 57, Issue 2, March 2022, pp. 485–513. Online Appendix
We explore gender differences in performance in a comprehensive sample of venture capital investments in the United States. Investments by female venture capital investors have significantly lower success rates than investments by their male colleagues controlling for personal characteristics including employment and educational history and portfolio companies' characteristics. The gender differences in investment outcomes are not due to female investors being less skilled but rather largely attributable to female investors receiving less benefit from the track records of their colleagues. Performance differences disappear in older, larger firms and firms with other female investors. This supports the view that formal feedback mechanisms and hierarchies are potentially useful in ameliorating the female performance gap.
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with Natee Amornsiripanitch and Paul Gompers
The Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Volume 35, Issue 3, November 2019, pp. 513–543.
Abstract
We explore patterns of board structure and function in the venture capital industry, identifying factors that influence whether venture capitalists receive a board seat and whether they take action to help portfolio companies in which they invest. In a comprehensive sample of US-based and non-US-based companies, we find that a venture capital firm's prior relationship with the founder, lead investor status, track record, network size, and geographical proximity to the portfolio company are positively correlated with its likelihood of taking a board seat in an investment round. When venture capital investors serve on the board, portfolio companies tend to recruit managers and board members from these investors' network and are more likely to exit via relationship-based acquisitions. These patterns are particularly strong for successful and well-connected venture capitalists on the board.
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with Chen Lin and Thomas Schmid
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 127, Issue 2, February 2018, pp. 303–324.
Abstract
We analyze how direct employee voice affects financial leverage. German law mandates that firms' supervisory boards consist of an equal number of employees' and owners' representatives. This requirement, however, applies only to firms with over 2,000 domestic employees. We exploit this discontinuity and the law's introduction in 1976 for identification and find that direct employee power increases financial leverage. This is explained by a supply side effect: as banks' interests are similar to those of employees, higher employee power reduces agency conflicts with debt providers, leading to better financing conditions. These findings reveal a novel mechanism of direct employee influence.
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with Malcolm Baker
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 121, Issue 1, July 2016, pp. 66–78.
Online Appendix
Abstract
There is a strong link between measures of stock market performance and subsequent equity issues. We find that management turnover weakens the link between equity issues and the returns that preceded the new CEO. Moreover, there is a discontinuity in the distribution of equity issues around the specific share price that the CEO inherited, while there is no discontinuity around salient share prices prior to turnover. The evidence suggests that capital allocation involves an attribution of past returns not only to the firm but also to its CEO. A corollary is that a firm with poor stock market performance may be better able to raise new capital if its current CEO is replaced.
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with Paul Gompers and Vladimir Mukharlyamov
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 119, Issue 3, March 2016, pp. 626–644.
Abstract
We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are more likely to syndicate with each other. This homophily reduces the probability of investment success, and the detrimental effect is most prominent for early-stage investments. A variety of tests show that the cost of affinity is most likely attributable to poor decision making by high-affinity syndicates after the investment is made. These results suggest that "birds-of-a-feather-flock-together" effects in collaboration can be costly.
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with Joy Ishii
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 112, Issue 3, June 2014, pp. 344–363.
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of social ties between acquirers and targets on merger performance. Using data on educational background and past employment, we construct a measure of the extent of cross-firm social connection between directors and senior executives at the acquiring and the target firms. We find that between-firm social ties have a significantly negative effect on the abnormal returns to the acquirer and to the combined entity upon merger announcement. Moreover, acquirer-target social ties significantly increase the likelihood that the target firm's CEO and a larger fraction of the target firm's pre-acquisition board of directors remain on the board of the combined firm after the merger. This also holds true at the level of individual target directors. An individual target director is more likely to be retained on the post-merger board if that target director has more social connections to the acquirer's directors and senior executives. In addition, we find that acquirer CEOs are more likely to receive bonuses and are more richly compensated for completing mergers with targets that are highly connected to the acquiring firms, that acquisitions are more likely to occur between two firms that are well-connected to each other through social ties, and that such acquisitions are more likely to subsequently be divested for performance-related reasons. Taken together, our results suggest that social ties between the acquirer and the target lead to poorer decision-making and lower value creation for shareholders overall.
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with Chen Lin, Yue Ma, and Paul Malatesta
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 109, Issue 2, August 2013, pp. 517–534.
Abstract
We examine the relation between a borrowing firm's ownership structure and its choice of debt source using a novel, hand-collected data set on corporate ownership, control and debt structures for 9,831 firms in 20 countries from 2001 to 2010. We find that the divergence between control rights and cash-flow rights of a borrowing firm's largest ultimate owner has a significant impact on the firm's choice between bank debt and public debt. A one-standard-deviation increase in the divergence reduces the borrowing firm's reliance on bank debt financing (measured by the ratio of bank debt to total debt) by approximately 23%. The effect of the control-ownership divergence on borrowing firms' debt choice is more pronounced for firms with high financial distress risk, firms that are informationally opaque, and firms that are family-controlled. Moreover, this effect is weakened by the presence of multiple large owners and in countries with strong shareholder rights. In addition, we find that the control-ownership divergence affects other aspects of debt structure such as debt maturity and security. Overall, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that firms controlled by large shareholders with excess control rights choose public debt financing over bank debt as a way of avoiding scrutiny and insulating themselves from bank monitoring.
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with Michael Firth, Chen Lin, and Ping Liu
Journal of Accounting Research, Volume 51, Issue 1, March 2013, pp. 165–200.
Abstract
This paper investigates whether the business relations between mutual funds and brokerage firms influence sell-side analyst recommendations. Using a unique data set that discloses brokerage firms' commission income derived from each mutual fund client as well as the share holdings of these mutual funds, we find that an analyst's recommendation on a stock relative to consensus is significantly higher if the stock is held by the mutual fund clients of the analyst's brokerage firm. The optimism in analyst recommendations increases with the weight of the stock in a mutual fund client's portfolio and the commission revenue generated from the mutual fund client. However, this favorable recommendation bias towards a client's existing portfolio stocks is mitigated if the stock in question is highly visible to other mutual fund investors. Abnormal stock returns are significantly greater both for the announcement period and in the long run for favorable stock recommendations from analysts not subject to client pressure than for equally favorable recommendations from business-related analysts. In addition, we find that subsequent to announcements of bad news from the covered firms, analysts are significantly less likely to downgrade a stock held by client mutual funds. Mutual funds increase their holdings in a stock that receives a favorable recommendation but this impact is significantly reduced if the recommendation comes from analysts subject to client pressure.
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with Chen Lin, Yue Ma, and Paul Malatesta
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 104, Issue 1, April 2012, pp. 1–22 (Lead Article).
Abstract
Using a novel data set on corporate ownership and control, we show that the divergence between the control rights and cash-flow rights of a borrowing firm's largest ultimate owner has a significant impact on the concentration and composition of the firm's loan syndicate. When the control-ownership divergence is large, lead arrangers form syndicates with structures that facilitate enhanced due diligence and monitoring efforts. These syndicates tend to be relatively concentrated and composed of domestic banks that are geographically close to the borrowing firms and that have lending expertise related to the industries of the borrowers. We also examine factors that influence the relation between ownership structure and syndicate structure, including lead arranger reputation, prior lending relationship, borrowing firm informational opacity, presence of multiple large owners, laws and institutions, and financial crises.
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The Role of Venture Capitalists in the Acquisition of Private Companies |
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with Paul Gompers
in Research Handbook on International Banking and Governance, edited by James Barth, Chen Lin, and Clas Wihlborg, Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012.
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with Chen Lin and Yue Ma
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 102, Issue 2, November 2011, pp. 416–431.
Abstract
This article examines the impact of the divergence between corporate insiders' control rights and cash-flow rights on firms' external finance constraints via generalized method of moments estimation of an investment Euler equation. Using a large sample of U.S. firms during the 1994-2002 period, we find that the shadow value of external funds is significantly higher for companies with a wider insider control-ownership divergence, suggesting that companies whose corporate insiders have larger excess control rights are more financially constrained. The effect of insider excess control rights on external finance constraints is more pronounced for firms with higher degrees of informational opacity and for firms with financial misreporting, and is moderated by institutional ownership. The results suggest that the agency problems associated with the control-ownership divergence can have a real impact on corporate financial and investment outcomes.
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with Chen Lin, Yue Ma, and Paul Malatesta
Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 100, Issue 1, April 2011, pp. 1–23 (Lead Article; First Place Winner of the 2011 Jensen Prize for the Best Paper in the Areas of Corporate Finance and Organizations published in the Journal of Financial Economics; Journal of Financial Economics All-Star Paper).
Abstract
This article identifies an important channel through which excess control rights affect firm value. Using a new, hand-collected data set on corporate ownership and control of 3,468 firms in 22 countries during the 1996-2008 period, we find that the cost of debt financing is significantly higher for companies with a wider divergence between the largest ultimate owner's control rights and cash-flow rights and investigate factors that affect this relation. Our results suggest that potential tunneling and other moral hazard activities by large shareholders are facilitated by their excess control rights. These activities increase the monitoring costs and the credit risk faced by banks and, in turn, raise the cost of debt for the borrower.
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The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 22, Issue 12, December 2009, pp. 4919–4948. Online Appendix
Abstract
This article investigates how the job histories of CEOs influence their capital allocation decisions when they preside over multi-divisional firms. I find that, after CEO turnover, divisions not previously affiliated with the new CEO receive significantly more capital expenditures than divisions through which the new CEO has advanced. The pattern of reverse-favoritism in capital allocation is more pronounced if the new CEO has less authority or if the unaffiliated divisions have more bargaining power. I find evidence that having a specialist CEO negatively affects segment investment efficiency. The results suggest that new specialist CEOs use the capital budget as a bridge-building tool to elicit cooperation from powerful divisional managers in previously unaffiliated divisions.
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WORKING PAPERS |
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with Qianqian Huang, Feng Jiang, and Xunan Zhou
Abstract
This paper examines whether directors' personal exposure to extreme weather events affects corporate environmental performance. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that when a focal firm's directors experience natural disasters at interlocking firms, the focal firm's environmental performance significantly improves in subsequent years. To shed light on the mechanism, we show that affected firms reduce their total toxic emissions and increase their green patenting activity, suggesting that the improvement in environmental performance reflects meaningful operational changes. The effect is more pronounced when the disaster is more salient, when more directors are affected, and when the affected directors are more senior. It is also stronger for focal firms in environmentally sensitive industries, for firms that are not financially constrained, and when the affected directors are Democrats or female—groups more likely to hold pro-climate beliefs ex ante. To further isolate the effect of personal experience, we examine an alternative setting in which firms are not directly affected by any major weather events but have directors whose residential areas are hit by severe natural disasters. We find similar positive effects on firm environmental performance following these disaster shocks in directors' areas of residence. Overall, our findings suggest that personal exposure to extreme weather events can influence directors' perception of climate risk and drive changes in corporate sustainability practices.
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with Lin Tang and Hong Zou
Abstract
Studying 182 jurisdictions, we find that adopting mobile payment can increase corruption in the short term, particularly in developing or civil-law jurisdictions. The temporary increase in corruption is due to lax regulations on mobile payment that often lag behind FinTech innovations at the early stage of adoption. Analysis of individual-level survey data provides corroborating micro evidence that bribe payment increases with mobile phone usage for individuals in jurisdictions with higher mobile payment coverage and laxer regulations. Our study demonstrates a potential dark side of FinTech and highlights the importance of regulation in the use of digital payments to combat corruption.
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with Qianqian Huang, Feng Jiang, and Tao Yuan
Abstract
We examine how banks respond to natural disasters when borrowers are adjacent to the disaster area. We find robust evidence that banks charge significantly higher spreads to firms located in these areas following a disaster than they charge to other firms. The observed effect is unlikely to be driven by regional spillovers, limited credit supply, rational learning, or lender rent extraction. Bank lenders also respond to faraway severe disasters if the borrowing firm is vulnerable to a similar type of disaster risk. Overall, our findings indicate that banks are subject to salience bias when assessing their clients' natural disaster risk.
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with Ruidi Huang
Winner of the China International Conference in Finance Best Paper Award
Abstract
This paper demonstrates the tacit benefits that accrue to both politicians and the firms to which they are connected through stock ownership. Specifically, we show strong evidence that politicians use private information and political favors for financial gains from stock investments in their personal portfolios, and that these favors have a real impact on the value and economic outcomes of the firms in which they invest. To do so, we assemble the stock ownership and trading data for all members of the U. S. Congress from 2010 to 2013 and use the passage of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act in 2012 as an experiment to examine changes in politicians' trading performance as well as in firm value and outcomes. We find that prior to the STOCK Act, members of the Congress earn significant abnormal returns on their stock trades, and an increase in their holdings of a firm's stock positively predicts the firm's likelihood of being acquired as well as its revenue and earnings surprises. After the passage of the Act, politicians exhibit no such informational advantage in trading or outperformance. On the firms' side, we show that companies with politician ownership on average lose 1.4% in value during the three-day window around the Act's passage, while firms not owned by politicians experience no abnormal returns. Correspondingly, after the Act's passage, these politician-owned firms lose a significant amount of procurement contracts and government grants and become less likely to be selected by the government into high-profile trade missions compared to during the pre-Act period. We find that these mutual benefits are particularly pronounced for politicians who are powerful and firms that are politically active.
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with Ping Liu
Abstract
This paper investigates how executive employment contracts influence corporate financial policies during the final year of the contract term, using a new, hand-collected data set of CEO employment agreements. On the one hand, the impending expiration of fixed-term employment contracts creates incentives for CEOs to engage in strategic window-dressing activities. We find that, compared to normal periods, CEOs manage earnings more aggressively when they are in the process of contract renegotiations. Correspondingly, during CEO contract renewal times, firms are more likely to report earnings that meet or narrowly beat analyst consensus forecasts. Moreover, CEOs also reduce the amount of negative firm news released during their contract negotiation years. On the other hand, we find that merger and acquisition deals announced during the contract renegotiation year yield higher announcement returns than deals announced during other periods, suggesting that the upcoming contract expiration and renewal can also have disciplinary effects on potential value-destroying behaviors of CEOs. In addition, we show that firms whose CEOs are not subject to contract renewal pressure do not experience such corporate policy changes and that CEOs who engage in manipulation during contract renewal obtain better employment terms in their new contracts, in terms of contract length, severance payment, and salary and bonus. Overall, our results indicate that job uncertainty created by expiring employment contracts induces changes in managerial behaviors that have significant impacts on firm financial activities and outcomes.
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Bridge Building in Venture Capital-Backed Acquisitions |
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with Paul Gompers
Abstract
This paper studies the role of common venture capital investors in alleviating asymmetric information between public acquirers and private venture capital-backed targets. We find that acquisition announcement returns are more positive for acquisitions in which both the target and the acquirer are financed by the same venture capital firm. Similarly, having a common investor increases both the likelihood that a transaction will be all equity-financed as well as the fraction of stock in the overall acquisition payment. In addition, an acquisition is more likely to take place when there is a common venture capital investor linking the acquirer and the target. Our results suggest that common venture capital investors can form a bridge between acquiring and target firms that reduces asymmetric information associated with the transaction for both parties.
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ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS |
University of California, Irvine
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| 2024– |
Senior Associate Dean, The Paul Merage School of Business |
| 2020–2024 |
Associate Dean of Master's Programs, The Paul Merage School of Business |
| 2019– |
Dean's Professor, The Paul Merage School of Business |
2019–
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Professor of Finance, The Paul Merage School of Business
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Teaching Assignments
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| 2019– |
Cases in Corporate Financial Management, Undergraduate and Master of Finance (Elective Curriculum) |
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Winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2020, Class of 2021, Class of 2022, Class of 2023, Class of 2024
Winner of the Excellence in Teaching Award, Undergraduate Class of 2022
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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| 2018–2019 |
Professor, Department of Finance, Gies College of Business |
| 2016–2019 |
Robert and Karen May Faculty Fellow, Gies College of Business |
| 2016–2019 |
Academic Director, Online MBA (iMBA) Program, Gies College of Business |
2015–2018
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Associate Professor, Department of Finance, Gies College of Business
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Teaching Assignments
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| 2015–2019 |
Cases in Financial Strategy, Master of Science in Finance (Elective Curriculum) |
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Selected to the List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent (with "Outstanding" ratings), 2016, 2017, 2018
Voted Best Professor by the Master of Science in Finance Class of 2016, Class of 2017, Class of 2018
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Harvard University
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| 2012–2015 |
Marvin Bower Fellow, Harvard Business School |
| 2012–2015 |
Associate Professor, Finance Unit, Harvard Business School |
| 2006–2012 |
Assistant Professor, Finance Unit, Harvard Business School |
2004–2006
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Head Teaching Fellow, Harvard University
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Teaching Assignments
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| 2012–2015 |
Global Immersion (China), Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development, MBA (Required Curriculum) |
| 2010–2015 |
Finance for Senior Executives, Executive Education |
| 2009–2015 |
Corporate Financial Management, MBA (Elective Curriculum) |
| 2006–2008 |
First-Year Finance, MBA (Required Curriculum) |
| 2004–2006 |
Corporate Finance; Introductory Econometrics; MBA Analytics Program |
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Awarded Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, 2004, 2005
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HONORS AND AWARDS |
| 2024 | |
Distinguished Service Award, Management Science |
| 2024 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2024, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2024 | |
Senior Faculty Research Award, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2023 | |
Distinguished Service Award, Management Science |
| 2023 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2023, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2023 | |
Senior Faculty Research Award, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2023 | |
Faculty Exceptional Service Award, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2022 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2022, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2022 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Undergraduate Class of 2022, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2021 | |
Distinguished Service Award, Management Science |
| 2021 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2021, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2020 | |
Distinguished Service Award, Management Science |
| 2020 | |
Excellence in Teaching Award, Master of Finance Class of 2020, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2019 | |
Distinguished Service Award, Management Science |
| 2019– | |
Dean's Professor, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine |
| 2018–2019 | |
Dean's Impact Award, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (awarded State of Illinois Recognition by Senator Scott Bennett of the 100th General Assembly, December 6, 2018) |
| 2018 | |
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent, with "Outstanding" ratings (top 10%), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2018 | |
Best Professor, voted by the Master of Science in Finance Class of 2018, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2018 | |
CICF Best Paper Award, China International Conference in Finance (CICF) |
| 2017 | |
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent, with "Outstanding" ratings (top 10%), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2017 | |
Best Professor, voted by the Master of Science in Finance Class of 2017, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2016–2019 | |
Robert and Karen May Faculty Fellow, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2016 | |
List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent, with "Outstanding" ratings (top 10%), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2016 | |
Best Professor, voted by the Master of Science in Finance Class of 2016, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| 2015 | |
All-Star Paper, for a high number of citations per year since publication, Journal of Financial Economics |
| 2012–2015 | |
Marvin Bower Fellow, Harvard Business School, Harvard University |
| 2011 | |
Jensen Prize, First Place Winner, for the Best Paper in the Areas of Corporate Finance and Organizations, Journal of Financial Economics |
| 2005 | |
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University |
| 2004 | |
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University |
2000–2005
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Doctoral Fellowship, Harvard Business School, Harvard University
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INVITED PRESENTATIONS |
Bentley University (Department of Finance), Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead), Chinese University of Hong Kong (Faculty of Business Administration), City University of Hong Kong (College of Business, 2), Cornell University (Johnson), Dartmouth College (Tuck), Duke University (Fuqua), Erasmus University (Rotterdam), George Mason University (School of Management), George Washington University (School of Business), Harvard Business School (2), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Business School), Lingnan University (Department of Economics, 2), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan), Michigan State University (Broad), National University of Singapore (Business School), New York University (Stern), Ohio State University (Fisher), Pennsylvania State University (Smeal), Purdue University (Krannert), Singapore Management University (Business School), State University of New York at Buffalo (School of Management), Tilburg University (School of Economics and Management), Tsinghua University (School of Economics and Management), University of Amsterdam (Business School), University of Bristol (School of Economics, Finance and Management), University of California, Irvine (Paul Merage, 2), University of Chicago (Booth), University of Cincinnati (Lindner), University of Delaware (Lerner), University of Exeter (Business School), University of Florida (Warrington), University of Geneva (Geneva Finance Research Institute), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Gies, 2), University of Iowa (Tippie), University of Lausanne (HEC), University of Michigan (Ross, 2), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler), University of Notre Dame (Mendoza), University of Rochester (Simon), University of Texas at Austin (McCombs), University of Utah (Eccles), University of Washington (Foster, 2), University of Zurich (Department of Banking and Finance), Washington University in St. Louis (Olin), Academy of Sustainable Finance, Accounting, Accountability & Governance (ASFAAG) American Chapter Conference (2024), American Economic Association (AEA) Annual Meeting (2007), American Finance Association (AFA) Annual Meeting (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019), Annual Conference on Corporate Finance and Financial Intermediation at Washington University in St. Louis (2017), Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER) Annual Conference (2021), Asian Finance Association (AsianFA) Annual Meeting (2022, 2024), China Fintech Research Conference (2022), China International Conference in Finance (2018, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025), CSEF-EIEF-SITE Conference on Finance and Labor (2015), Drexel University Academic Conference on Corporate Governance (2015), European Finance Association (EFA) Annual Meeting (2015, 2020), European Financial Management Association (EFMA) Annual Meeting (2019, 2024), Financial Intermediation Research Society (FIRS) Annual Conference (2012, 2021), Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting (2021), Greater China Area Finance Conference (2022), International Conference on Smart Finance (2023), Kauffman Foundation Early-Stage Investing Conference (2013), Midwest Finance Association (MFA) Annual Meeting (2021, 2022), Minnesota Corporate Finance Conference (2014), National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute Law and Economics Workshop (2010), Red Rock Finance Conference (2015), Shanghai Financial Forefront Symposium (2022), Singapore International Conference on Finance (2010), Society for Financial Studies (SFS) Cavalcade (2018), Texas Finance Festival (2009), Western Finance Association (WFA) Annual Meeting (2015), World Finance & Banking Symposium (2021), World Finance Conference (2022)
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SERVICE ACTIVITIES |
Editorial Boards
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Associate Editor, Journal of Financial Economics, 2021–
Associate Editor, Journal of Corporate Finance, 2021–
Associate Editor, Management Science, 2018–
Associate Editor, Journal of Empirical Finance, 2016–
Associate Editor, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2012–
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School/University
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Senior Associate Dean (2024–), Inclusive Excellence Council (2023–), Asian/Pacific Islander Initiative (2022–), Executive Committee (2020–), Curriculum Council, Dean’s Advisory Board (2022–2024), Associate Dean of Master's Programs (2020–2024), Master's Programs Committee (2019–2024; Ex officio, 2020–2024), Joint Master's Degree Programs Committee (2019–2024; Ex officio, 2020–2024), Ad Hoc Promotion and Tenure Committee (Chair, 2019–2020; 2021–2022), Hiring Committee for Assistant Dean of MBA and Specialty Master’s Programs (Chair, 2021–2022), Provost's Workgroup on Alternative Digital Credentials (2020), Hiring Committee for Assistant Dean of External Relations and Engagement (2020–2021), Graduate Council, Academic Senate (2019–2020), Graduate Programs Advisory Committee (2018–2019), Academic Director, Online MBA Program (2016–2019), Online MBA Program Specialized Faculty Search Committee (Chair and Diversity Advocate, 2018–2019), Online MBA Program Faculty Advisory Committee (2016–2019; Chair, 2017–2019)
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Conference Discussant and Session Chair
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American Finance Association (AFA) Annual Meeting (2007, 2009, 2012), China International Conference in Finance (CICF) (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025), Drexel University Academic Conference on Corporate Governance (2011, 2018, 2020), Midwest Finance Association (MFA) Annual Meeting (2019, 2022), Society for Financial Studies (SFS) Cavalcade (2015), Yale-European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)-Oxford Conference on Corporate Governance (2010)
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Conference Program Committees
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China International Conference in Finance (CICF) (2018–), Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting (CFEA) (2024), Drexel University Academic Conference on Corporate Governance (2017–), European Finance Association (EFA) Annual Meeting (2013–), European Financial Management Association (EFMA) Annual Meeting (2015–), Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting (2019, 2020, 2021, 2025), Financial Management Association (FMA) Asia/Pacific Conference (2017, 2019, 2020, 2024), International Conference on Finance & Technology (2022), Midwest Finance Association (MFA) Annual Meeting (Track Chair, 2016), Portuguese Finance Network Conference (2023–), Society for Financial Studies (SFS) Cavalcade (2023–), Summer Institute of Finance Conference (2019, 2023–), Utah Winter Finance Conference (2013–), Western Finance Association (WFA) Annual Meeting (2010–)
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Reviewer
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Contemporary Accounting Research, Critical Finance Review, Emerging Markets Finance & Trade, European Financial Management, Financial Management, Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Journal of Comparative Economics, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economics & Business, The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Financial Markets, The Journal of Law & Economics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Management Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Finance, The Review of Financial Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Swiss National Science Foundation
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