Publications
Can Human Capital Explain Income-Based Disparities in Financial Services? with Ruidi Huang, James Linck, and Chris Parsons
Review of Financial Studies, Forthcoming.
The Impact of Minority Representation at Mortgage Lenders with Scott Frame, Ruidi Huang, Erica Jiang, Yeonjoon Lee, Will Liu, and Adi Sunderam
Journal of Finance, Forthcoming.
Note: This paper combines the working papers "The Impact of Minority Representation at Mortgage Lenders” by Frame, Huang, Mayer, and Sunderam and “Reducing Racial Disparities in Consumer Credit: The Role of Minority Loan Officers in the Era of Algorithmic Underwriting” by Jiang, Lee, and Liu.
Gender Bias in Promotions: Evidence from Financial Institutions with Ruidi Huang and Darius Miller
Review of Financial Studies, Forthcoming.
Best Paper - FMA Napa/Sonoma Finance Conference (2022)
Media: SMU Cox Bulletin
Big Banks, Household Credit Access, and Intergenerational Economic Mobility
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Forthcoming. (SSRN Link)
Best Paper - Columbia/BPI Research Conference (2020)
Media: SMU Cox Bulletin
Racial Disparities in the Auto Loan Market with Alex Butler and James Weston
Review of Financial Studies (2023), 36 (1), 1-41. Editor's Choice and Lead Article. (SSRN Link)
Best Paper semifinalist - Financial Management Association Meeting (2019)
Media: Bloomberg (Matt Levine), Consumer Reports (1, 2, and 3), Presentation Recording
Advertising, Investor Attention, and Stock Prices: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Financial Management (2021), 50 (1), 281-314. (SSRN Link)
Best Paper - Eastern Finance Association Meeting (2015)
Working Papers (* indicates presentation by coauthor)
Fraud Litigation and FHA Mortgage Lending with Scott Frame, Kristopher Gerardi, Billy Xu, and Lawrence Zhao
We study the impact of recent increases in mortgage lenders' litigation risk on borrowers. In the last decade, the U.S. Department of Justice brought suits against many of the largest lenders in the FHA mortgage market, alleging fraud under the False Claims Act. These suits led to over $5.4 billion in settlements and caused targeted banks and their peers to precipitously exit the FHA market. A combination of difference-in-differences and triple differences tests exploiting geographic variation in exposure to exiting banks show a 19% reduction in aggregate FHA lending in heavily affected areas. Smaller non-bank lenders with higher historical misconduct rates partially filled the void in the FHA market, highlighting potential unintended consequences of aggressive consumer financial protection litigation.
Best Paper semifinalist - Financial Management Association Meeting (2023)
Presentations 2024: American Economic Association, FSU-UF Critical Issues in Real Estate Symposium* (scheduled), Eastern Finance Association* (scheduled), Emory University*; 2023: INFORMS Annual Meeting, Boca Corporate Finance and Governance Conference*, Financial Management Association, University of Rochester*, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta*
Alumni Networks in Venture Capital Financing with Jon Garfinkel, Ilya Strebulaev, and Emmanuel Yimfor
One in three deals in the venture capital market involves an investor and founder from the same alma mater. We show these connections facilitate VC funding and improve outcomes. Venture capitalists tilt their portfolios toward startups from their alma mater and place larger bets on these firms. Results are stronger when information about founder abilities is less clear, and connected investments outperform the same investors’ unconnected investments. Tests exploiting alumni interactions from college football games and VC-partner turnover suggest a causal relationship between connections and funding. Overall, our evidence suggests information benefits from education networks in the venture capital market.
Presentations 2024: Midwest Finance Association* (scheduled); 2023: 15th Annual Private Equity Research Symposium*; 2022: California State University-Fullerton*; 2021: Financial Management Association*, University of Michigan*, Southern Methodist University
Media: Wall Street Journal, Institutional Investor, State Science & Technology Institute, Teknovation
The Effects of Audit Partners on Financial Reporting: Evidence from US Bank Holding Companies with Gauri Bhat, Hemang Desai, Scott Frame, and Christoffer Koch
This paper uses confidential data on audit engagement partner names from regulatory filings of bank holding companies (BHC) to investigate whether partners display individual style that affects the financial reporting of the BHCs. We focus on loan loss provisioning and construct an audit partner-BHC matched panel data set that enables us to track partners across different BHCs over time. We employ two empirical approaches to investigate partner style. The first approach tests whether partner fixed effects are statistically significant in loan loss provisioning models. The second approach tests whether a partner’s history of loan loss provisioning predicts future practices for the same partner. Our empirical evidence does not support systematic differences in loan loss provisioning across audit engagement partners, suggesting that the audit firm’s standards and quality control constrain personal partner style.
Presentations 2022: Rice University*, Tulane University*
Work in Progress
Project on Intergenerational Mobility with Connor Cole, Ruidi Huang, Corbin Miller, and Barton Willage
Presentations 2023: American Economic Association, NBER Summer Institute on Children*, European Association of Labour Economists Conference, National Tax Association Annual Conference*; 2022: Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury
Project on Mortgage Lending with Ruidi Huang, Sheridan Titman, and David Xu
Resting Papers
Credit Where Credit is Due: Drivers of Subprime Credit with Elizabeth Berger and Alex Butler
Presentations 2018: Texas Finance Festival*, CFPB Research Conference, University of Washington*, University of Rochester*, Vanderbilt University*, Lancaster University*
Media: Jalopnik