My research examines how technological change, labor-market conditions, information and disclosure, financial networks, and climate-related risks shape corporate behavior and capital market outcomes. Below are some of my selected publications.
FT50 Articles
"Inflation and Corporate Credit Risk: Global Evidence", with Thomas To and Gaiyan Zhang, 2026, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, In-Press. (SSRN)
Inflation raises corporate credit risk globally but not uniformly; the relation is convex: weak or negative at low inflation, but strongly positive at high inflation, especially for firms with refinancing needs and sticky cash flows.
"Firm-Level Labor Shortage Exposure", with Jarrad Harford and Qiyang He, 2026, Review of Financial Studies, In-Press. (SSRN) (Data)
We develop a novel machine-learning measure of firm-level labor shortage exposure and show that labor shortages hurt firm performance and prompt firms to substitute labor with capital, R&D, and process innovation.
Featured in HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute Blog
"Climate-related Disclosure Commitment of the Lenders, Credit Rationing, and Borrower Environmental Performance", with Iftekhar Hasan, Haekwon Lee and Anthony Saunders, 2026, Review of Accounting Studies, 31:74-117. (SSRN)
Lenders' voluntary climate-related disclosure commitment through TCFD membership improves borrower environmental performance by tightening credit to polluters.
Best Paper Award at 2022 CAFM Conference
Featured in Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
"Politicians' Hometown Favoritism and Capital Resource Allocation", with Gary Tian and Yanling Wu, 2025, Journal of Management Studies, 62: 2587-2621. (SSRN)
Politicians' hometown favoritism increases hometown firms' IPO approval chances and reduces societal capital resource allocation efficiency.
Featured in The Management Studies Insights Blog
"The Effect of Social Media on Corporate Innovation: Evidence from Seeking Alpha Coverage", with Qiyang He, Henry Leung and Zhou Zhou, 2025, Management Science, 71: 5441-5476. (SSRN) (Data)
Social media coverage promotes corporate innovation by disseminating innovation-related information about the covered firm to external investors, thereby alleviating the firm's financial constraints.
"Contagious Stock Price Crashes along the Supply Chain", with Fangming Xu, Andy C. L. Yeung and Cheng (Colin) Zeng, 2024, Production and Operations Management, 33: 1679-1699. (SSRN)
Stock price crash risk can be transmitted from major customers to suppliers with a delay of up to two weeks; customer operational incidents have a more pronounced contagious effect on suppliers compared to customer financial incidents.
"Proprietary Knowledge Protection and Product Market Performance", with Justin Hang Nguyen and Peter Pham, 2023, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 58: 3521-3546. (SSRN)
Enhancing proprietary knowledge protection spurs product market performance particularly for small and young firms.
"How Does Deleveraging Affect Funding Market Liquidity? ", with Gary Tian and Haijian Zeng, 2022, Management Science, 68: 4568-4601. (SSRN) (Data)
Deleveraging dampens the market liquidity of high-embedded-leverage securities issued by financial institutions and tightens the financial constraints of these institutions.
Featured in The FinReg Blog of the Duke Financial Economics Center at Duke Law School
"Better Kept in the Dark? Portfolio Disclosure and Agency Problems in Mutual Funds", with Teodor Dyakov and Jarrad Harford, 2022, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 57: 1529-1563. (SSRN)
Mandating more frequent portfolio disclosures hurts mutual funds with high relative performance volatility by imposing skill re-assessment risks on fund managers.
"The Equilibrium Relationships between Performance Based-Based Pay, Performance, and the Commission and Detection of Fraudulent Misreporting", with Steve Slezak, 2019, The Accounting Review, 94: 325-356. (SSRN)
The theory shows that regulation that increases minimum internal corporate governance standard or ex-post fraud penalties (as with SOX) reduces executive pay-for-performance sensitivity and firm value but can improve social welfare.
Taiwan Stock Exchange Best Paper Award at the 14th Conference on the Theories and Practices of Securities and Finance Markets (SFM) Meeting
"Escape from the USA: Government Debt to GDP Ratio, Country Tax Competitiveness, and U.S.-OECD Cross-border M&As", with Ying Gan, 2019, Journal of International Business Studies, 50: 1156-1183. (SSRN)
Tax arbitrage increases the shareholder wealth of US acquirers and is an important driver of US-OECD cross-border acquisition deal flows.
"Does Knowledge Protection Benefit Shareholders? Evidence from Stock Market Reaction and Firm Investment in Knowledge Assets", with Teng Wang, 2018, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 53: 1341-1370. (SSRN) (Data)
Enhancing proprietary knowledge protection benefits shareholders on average and encourages corporate knowledge asset investment.
Best Paper Award in corporate finance/financial institutions at 2016 Financial Management Association (FMA) Asia Pacific Conference
"Organization Capital and Mergers and Acquisitions", with Kai Li and Rui Shen, 2018, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 53: 1871-1909. (SSRN)
Organization capital of an acquirer increases its M&A deal performance.
"A Better Measure of Institutional Informed Trading", with Huo Guo, 2016, Contemporary Accounting Research, 33: 815-850. (SSRN) (Data)
We develop a better institutional informed trading measure - PC_NII, which subsumes the information content of other institutional trading and herding measures in the forecast of future stock returns.
15th Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA) Academic Competition 3rd Place Award
Other Journal Articles
"Real Estate Collateral, Lender Screening, and M&A Performance", with Mingze Gao and Thanh Son Luong, 2026, Journal of Corporate Finance, 98, 102962. (SSRN)
Acquirers with higher real estate value achieve better M&A performance because real estate collateral strengthens lender screening.
"Board Reforms, Stock Liquidity, and Stock Market Development", with Thomas To, 2025, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, 14: 261-303. (SSRN)
Board reforms improve stock liquidity and promote stock market development around the world.
Featured in Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
"Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions Under Lender Scrutiny", with Teng Wang, 2025, Journal of Corporate Finance, 94, 102812. (SSRN)
Bank stress test failures heighten lender scrutiny, prompting borrower firms to make fewer, higher quality M&A deals.
Featured in CentralBanking.com
"Environmental Enforcement Actions and Corporate Green Innovation", with Qiyang He, 2025, Journal of Corporate Finance, 91, 102711. (SSRN) (Data)
EPA enforcement actions foster corporate green innovation, enabling enforced firms to avoid future EPA actions and reduce toxic chemical releases.
"Conditional Equity Premium and Aggregate Corporate Investment", with Hui Guo, 2023, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 55: 251-295. (SSRN) (Data)
Conditional equity premium negatively drives aggregate corporate investment.
Best Paper Award at 2017 (Eighth) Financial Markets and Corporate Governance (FMCG) Conference
"Institutional Distance, Geographic Distance, and Chinese Venture Capital Investment: Do network and Trust Matter?", with Ying Sophie Huang, Jiajia Wu and Juan Yao, 2023, Small Business Economics, 61: 1795-1844. (SSRN)
Network and trust play different roles in moderating the dampening effects of institutional distance and geographic distance on VC investment in China.
"Credit Market Development and Corporate Earnings Management: Evidence from Banking and Branching Deregulations", with Yichu Huang and Frank Hong Liu, 2023, Journal of Financial Stability, 67, 101142. (SSRN)
Banking and branching deregulations decrease corporate earnings management intensity.
"The Impact of Flooding on Firm Performance and Economic Growth", with Xiaofei Pan, 2022, PLoS One, 17, e0271309. (SSRN) (Data)
Flooding has significant negative impacts on local firm performance and economic and employment growth; flood-exposed firms react to the threat by altering their corporate policies.
"Right-to-Work Laws and Corporate Innovation", with Justin Hung Nguyen, 2022, Journal of Corporate Finance, 76, 102263. (SSRN)
Right-to-work laws spur corporate innovation.
"What Drives the Dispersion Anomaly?", with Byoung-Kyu Min and Tai-Yong Roh, 2022, Journal of Banking & Finance, 138, 106405. (SSRN)
The stock return predictability of analyst forecast dispersion is driven by the information content of dispersion on future firm profitability due to managerial disclosure manipulation.
Semifinalist for Best Paper Award at 2019 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting
"The Effect of Skilled Labor Intensity on Corporate Dividend Payouts", with Justin Hung Nguyen, 2022, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 49: 963-1010. (SSRN)
Skilled labor intensity dampens corporate dividend payouts.
"Does It Pay to be Socially Connected with Wall Street Brokerages? Evidence from Cost of Equity", with Thanh Son Luong and Ava Wu, 2021, Journal of Corporate Finance, 68, 101939. (SSRN)
Social connection to Wall Street brokerages reduces corporate cost of equity.
Runner-up Best Paper Award at 2019 Financial Research Network (FIRN) PhD Consortium
"The Information Content of 10-K File Size Change", with Quan Gan, 2021, International Review of Finance, 21: 1251-1285. (SSRN)
Change in firm 10-K file size negatively predicts future stock returns and this return predictability reflects the information content of file size change on future cash flow news.
CFA Best Paper Prize at 2017 Financial Research Network (FIRN) Annual Conference
"Organizational Capital, Corporate Tax Avoidance, and Firm Value", with Mostafa Hasan and Gerald Lobo, 2021, Journal of Corporate Finance, 70, 102050 (Lead Article). (SSRN)
Firms with higher organization capital pay less corporate income tax on average.
"Patent Enforcement, Shareholder Value, and Firm Innovations: Evidence from the Supreme Court Ruling on TC Heartland (2017)", with Andy Law and Teng Wang, 2021, Harvard Business Law Review, 11: 1-26. (SSRN)
Weakening patent holders' ability to enforce intellectual property protection leads to negative stock price reactions for innovative firms and shifts such firms' innovation patterns.
"Debt Rollover Risk, Credit Default Swap Spread and Stock Returns: Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis", with Ya Liu and Teng Wang, 2021, Journal of Financial Stability, 53, 100855. (SSRN)
The COVID-19 shock significantly increased CDS spread and decreased shareholder value for firms facing high debt rollover risk.
Spencer Martin Best Paper Award at 2020 Financial Research Network (FIRN) PhD Consortium
"Organization Capital and Executive Performance Incentives", with Mingze Gao and Henry Leung, 2021, Journal of Banking & Finance, 123, 106017. (SSRN)
A firm's organization capital has a significant substitution effect on its executive pay-for-performance sensitivity.
Outstanding PhD Student Paper Award from the 3rd Global PhD Colloquium
"Performance Volatility, Information Availability, and Disclosure Reforms", with Renhui Fu, Fang Gao and Yong H. Kim, 2017, Journal of Banking & Finance, 75:35-52. (SSRN)
The SOX Act increases corporate information availability but hurts firms with high performance volatility.
"Options-Implied Variance and Future Stock Returns", with Hui Guo, 2014, Journal of Banking & Finance, 44: 93-113. (SSRN)
Options-implied variance negatively predicts future stock returns in both cross-sectional (for individual stocks) and time-series (for the market index) analyses.
18th Chicago Quantitative Alliance (CQA) Academic Competition 2nd Place Award
"Do Target CEOs Trade Premiums for Personal Benefits?", with Svetoslav Trapkov and Fadi Yakoub, 2014, Journal of Banking & Finance, 42: 23-41. (SSRN)
Target CEOs tend to bargain shareholder value for personal benefits during corporate takeovers.