Working Papers

1. Do consulting services affect audit quality? Evidence from the workforce (with Tatiana Fedyk, James Hodson, and Natalya Khimich) July 2025. Revise and Resubmit (2nd round), The Accounting Review.

2. AI and perception biases in investments: An experimental study . (with Ali Kakhbod, Peiyao Li, and Ulrike Malmendier) June 2025. Revise and Resubmit, Journal of Financial Economics.

Best Paper award, D.C. FinTech Week 2024

3. Artificial intelligence and firms' systematic risk. (with Tania Babina, Alex He, and James Hodson) June 2024.

4. Data innovation complementarity and firm growth. (with Roxana Mihet, Kumar Rishabh, and Orlando Gomes) July 2025.

5. Lehman's lemons: Do career disruptions matter for the top 5%? (with James Hodson) August 2023.

6. Managerial structure and performance-induced trading. (with Saurin Patel and Sergei Sarkissian) July 2024.

7. Technology in the banking sector and the importance of modern skills (with Effi Benmelech, James Hodson, Vladimir Mukharlyamov, and Dimitris Papanikolaou) December 2024. Draft available upon request.

Abstract: This paper examines technology adoption and individual career progression of technically-skilled employees in the banking sector. We leverage detailed employer-employee data on individual worker skills to capture (i) the technical skills of each employee, (ii) firm-level technical capital, and (iii) a novel methodology to systematically measure vintages of technical skills, differentiating older technical skills (e.g., Fortran) from newer technical skills (e.g., Python). Banks dramatically increased their technology investments during the 2010s, with an average bank's technical capital growing by 84%. This increase is ubiquitous across bank size, deposits, and loan portfolio composition. At the individual level, we document a significant difference between employees with modern technical skills and those with outdated technical skills. Having modern technical skills in 2015 reduces the likelihood of adverse career outcomes (such as job separations accompanied by demotions) by 2020 by 2.7%. These effects are especially pronounced for older workers. For employees over 40, having modern technical skills reduces the probability of job separations with demotions by 3.9%. These results highlight the interaction between employee age and skill vintage, with important policy implications for workforce reskilling in the face of advancing new technologies.

Publications

1. Asymmetric naïveté: Beliefs about self-control. Internet Appendix. 2025. Management Science, 71(7): 5419-6318.

Winner, Carlsberg Foundation Special Prize for Young Scholar at the 2018 NCBEE

2. Artificial intelligence makes firm operating performance less volatile. (with Tania Babina, Alex He, and James Hodson) 2025. AEA Papers & Proceedings, 115: 35-39.

3. A HIMARS in the hand is worth two in the bush: Measuring the real economic value of U.S. support for Ukraine (with James Hodson, Emilia Marshall, Tatyana Deryugina, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Ilona Sologoub) 2025 Economic Modelling, forthcoming.                                                 

4. Artificial intelligence, firm growth, and product innovation. (with Tania Babina, Alex He, and James Hodson) 2024. Journal of Financial Economics, 151: 103745.

5. Front page news: The effect of news positioning on financial markets. 2024. Journal of Finance, 79(1): 5-33, lead article.

Best Paper Award, 2018 FMA Napa Conference on Financial Markets Research

Best Ph.D. Paper Award, 2017 European Finance Association

2017 WFA Cubist Systematic Strategies PhD Candidate Award for Outstanding Research

Finalist, 2016 Hillcrest Behavioral Finance Award

6. When can the market identify old news? (with James Hodson) 2023. Journal of Financial Economics, 149(1): 92-113. Editor's choice.

Finalist, 2019 Hillcrest Behavioral Finance Award

7. Trading on talent: Human capital and firm performance. (with James Hodson) 2023. Review of Finance, 27(5): 1659-1698.

Best Paper on Long-Term Investments, 2018 Northern Finance Association

Winner, 2017 Jack Treynor Prize from the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance

Second Place, 2017 PanAgora Asset Management Dr. Richard A. Crowell Memorial Prize

8. Divesting under pressure: U.S. firms' exit in response to Russia's war against Ukraine. (with Tetyana Balyuk) 2023. Journal of Comparative Economics, 51(4): 1253-1273. (Special issue on "Ukraine: war, resilience, and future developments")

9. Is artificial intelligence improving the audit process? (with Tatiana Fedyk, James Hodson, and Natalya Khimich) 2022. Review of Accounting Studies, 27: 938-985. (Presented at the 2021 RAST Conference).

10. Disagreement after news: Gradual information diffusion or differences of opinion? 2021. Review of Asset Pricing Studies, 11(3): 465-501. Editor's Choice. Internet  Appendix

Review of Asset Pricing Studies Rising Scholar Award, 2022

Best Paper on Market Microstructure, 2019 Northern Finance Association

Also circulated under the title of "News-Driven Trading: Who Reads the News and When?"

Book Chapters

1. Firm investments in artificial intelligence technologies and changes in workforce composition. (with Tania Babina, Alex He, and James Hodson) NBER Volume on Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth, forthcoming.

2. Can machine learning solve your business problem? In HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers (pp. 111-119). Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press, 2018.

Business and Policy Publications

1. The effects of AI on firms and workers. (with Tania Babina) Brookings Papers. July 2025.

2. New analysis from Economists for Ukraine: The cost of US aid to Ukraine is less than half the official figures. (with James Hodson) VoxEU, March 2025. 

3. Beyond mandated sanctions: Western firms' voluntary departure from Russia. (with Tetyana Balyuk) VoxEU, July 2023. 

4. How to tell if machine learning can solve your business problem. Harvard Business Review. November 2016.

5. Research: How investors' reading habits influence stock prices. Harvard Business Review. September 2016.