(January 29, 2026 Version)
Scientists on Corporate Boards: An Alternative Mechanism for Accessing Scientific Knowledge, January 2026, (Presented at the 2025 European Finance Association Annual Meeting in Paris and 2025 Financial Management Association Annual Meeting in Vancouver). (with Yufeng Yao)
Abstract: Scientific research is a fundamental driver of innovation. Yet, corporate investment in scientific research is declining relative to patent development, potentially delaying the economic benefits of valuable scientific research. This study investigates how Scientists on Corporate Boards (BdScis), drawn from industry and academia, support corporate innovation by bridging the scientific research to patent gap. We measure scientific expertise using BdScis’ publications. Network analysis shows that firms are more successful in recruiting and retaining talented inventors from their BdScis’ professional networks. To address endogeneity concerns, we examine local supplies of BdSci candidates and the Human Genome Project’s technological shock to establish causality.
Governance Through Voting: Shareholder Responses to Major Environmental and Social Incidents, December 2025, (Under Review and Presented at the 2024 FMA Annual Meeting, the HEC-HKUST Sustainable Finance Webinar, 2024 Asian Finance Association (AsianFA) Annual Conference, Macau SAR, China, and the 2025 American Finance Association Poster Session.) (with Suxin Deng and Kingsley Fong)
Abstract: This paper investigates shareholder reactions to major environmental and social (ES) incidents by examining voting behavior in director elections. Using a comprehensive dataset of U.S. firms, we find that directors of companies experiencing significant ES incidents face an average of 9.8% more negative votes, with climate-related incidents prompting the most pronounced dissent. Female directors, who typically enjoy higher support, experience greater losses in shareholder backing following major ES incidents. Negative voting, per se, has a negligible impact on lowering the likelihood of future ES incidents, but boards that respond by adopting ES-linked executive compensation or forcing CEO turnover see a significant mitigation in the likelihood of incidents. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the governance role of shareholders in holding directors accountable for ES oversight and highlight the conditions under which shareholder activism can effectively influence corporate sustainability.
Mitigating Effects of Gender Diverse Boards in Companies with Aggressive Management, January 2022, (Under Revision) (with Suman Banerjee and Arun Upadhyay)
Abstract: Little research exists on matching CEO types with board composition. Examining whether gender-diverse boards help mitigate the negative effects of overconfident CEOs, we find stronger performance when firms have a female independent director (female ID). Professional Female IDs with good board attendance drive this relationship. Exogenous departures of female IDs trigger significant declines in firm performance. Female ID appointment announcements at firms with overconfident CEOs generate positive CARs. We document that female IDs impose greater accountability on overconfident CEOs. Our results suggest that simple board restructuring can be as effective in improving CEO behavior as more intrusive regulations.
Target Employee-Shareholder Conflicts of Interest, Unemployment Insurance and Takeover Outcomes, January 2022. (Under Revision.) (with Lixiong Guo and Jing Kong)
Abstract: We examine the extent that unemployment insurance (UI) reduces employee-shareholder conflicts of interest in target firms and affects takeover outcomes. A 10% increase in UI level raises takeover likelihoods by 15-26% over the unconditional mean. This rise is only partially explained by unionized employees. Board stakeholder orientation is another important channel. Adoption of directors’ duties laws raises a board’s stakeholder orientation and UI’s influence on takeover likelihoods. Higher target state UI benefits also raise deal synergies and gains to acquirer and target shareholders. Our evidence suggests that UI improves takeover market efficiency and UI policy should recognize this benefit.
Do Wealth Creating Mergers Really Hurt Acquirer Shareholders? February 2017. (Under Revision.) (with Peter Swan and Mark Humphrey-Jenner)
Abstract: We examine the economic benefits of acquisitions of U.S. public firms. Estimating revelation biases concerning internal investment opportunities, we find that it produces a significant negative bidder announcement effect, often interpreted as shareholder wealth destruction. Examining exogenously failed bids, which lack revelation bias, we estimate that bidders capture roughly 77% of economic gains. The combined firm’s economic gains represent 15.4% of total assets. Adjusting for revelation bias over the acquisition bid cycle, we find that conventional methodologies understate bidder returns. We confirm the neoclassical view that takeovers are highly profitable for typical bidders, consistent with acquisitions generally being profitable investments.
How Long-Lasting Demand Shocks Affect CEO Compensation? February 2026. (with Iftekhar Hasan, Linghua Kong, Stefano Manfredonia and Eliza Wu)
Abstract: We examine how long-lasting demand shocks shape CEO compensation structure and firm outcomes of government contractors. Census shocks create persistent government spending increases that expand procurement opportunities and reduce demand uncertainty. Boards respond to Census shocks by adopting more convex executive compensation structures, raising expected CEO pay to better align manager-shareholder incentives, while negative shocks lead to reduced executive pay convexity. Contrary to the rent-extraction hypothesis, these effects are driven by stronger governed firms. Heightened risk-taking incentives induce greater investment activity and improved operating performance, highlighting how CEO compensation design is a key channel for responding to persistent demand shocks.
Career Concerns, Risk-related Agency Conflicts, and Corporate Policies, January 2022. (Under Review and Featured in the ECGI Preamble and Working Paper Series) (with M. Emdad Islam and Lubna Rahman)
Abstract: Stricter enforcement of post-employment restrictions that strengthens trade secrets protection also limits CEOs’ alternative employment opportunities. We find that such mobility restrictions, which heightened CEO career concerns can dampen their risk-taking incentives and distort corporate financing decisions, particularly in firms whose CEOs value outside employment opportunities relatively highly. Stock market reactions to acquisition announcements suggest that intensified CEO career concerns from mobility restrictions compromise the quality of investment decisions. More generally, managerial career concerns adversely affect shareholder value by exacerbating risk-related agency conflicts. Thus, our evidence suggests that shareholders can benefit from more unconstrained labor markets that promote managerial risk-taking.
Risk Sharing in Supply Chains of Business Groups: Evidence from Trade Credit, December 2025. (Presented at the 2023 Sydney Banking and Financial Stability Conference, 2023 Australasian Finance & Banking Conference, the 18th Annual Conference on Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, the 2024 FMA Asia/Pacific Conference, Seoul, the 20th Annual Conference of the Asia-Pacific Association of Derivatives (APAD 2024), the 2024 FMA Annual Meeting in Vancouver and the 2026 American Finance Association Meeting, in Philadelphia.) (with Jinzhao Du, Peter Kien Pham and Jenny Jihyun Tak)
Abstract: This paper examines customer-supplier relationships and competing views on trade financing motivations within business groups. We find group firms actively trade among themselves and use trade financing to help affiliates mitigate operational risks. Compared to standalone peers, group firms with same-group suppliers receive more trade credit, particularly when financially constrained. Trade financing substitutes for direct investment by group affiliates, although most capital-dependent affiliates benefit from both forms of investment. Our results suggest that extending trade credit does not hurt group suppliers’ minority shareholders. An identification strategy based on major natural disasters strengthens the causal interpretation of our main results.
Executive Talent Allocation Across Family Business Group Affiliates, December 2025. (Presented at the 2024 FMA Asia/Pacific Conference, the 2024 FMA Annual Conference and 2024 FIRN Annual Conference, the 2025 Baltic Family Firm Institute-ECGI Conference, Riga Latvia and 2025 Erasmus Corporate Governance Conference, Rotterdam.) (with Jinzhao Du, Peter Kien Pham and Jason Zein)
Abstract: Utilizing novel data on the executive movements across listed firms around the world, this study investigates how a family business group allocates human capital among their affiliated firms. We show that groups actively leverage their internal labor markets (ILMs) to source executive talent, with 30% of executive movements originating from other affiliated firms. Despite having overall greater demands for executive talent, group firms hire significantly fewer executives from the external labor market than comparable standalone firms. Such external hiring only rises in periods of poor performance. Within a group, the reallocation of talent is mainly directed towards younger and bottom-of-pyramid member firms, and those with relatively weaker performance and affiliates that receive within-group investments. Overall, this study implies that family business groups maintain active ILMs, through which critical human capital can be reallocated to support the development of group members.
Ownership, Investment and Governance: The Costs and Benefits of Dual Class Shares, May 2020 (Under Revision and Presented at the 2012 FIRN Art of Finance Conference, Hobart and 2014 ISB Summer Research Conference and the 2015 Global Corporate Governance Colloquia Conference, Stanford Law School.) (Featured in The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation and ECGI working paper.) (with Suman Banerjee)
Abstract: We show that dual-class shares can be a solution to agency conflicts rather than a result of agency conflicts. When firms with a controlling shareholder issue voting shares to fund projects, the risk of losing control rises, which can threaten the controller’s private benefits. Thus, incumbents may forgo positive NPV investments to maintain control. Non-voting shares allow firms to fund projects without diluting an incumbent’s voting rights; which alleviates the underinvestment problem. But, issuing non-voting shares dilutes dividends per share and facilitates entrenchment, reducing value-enhancing takeover bids. We derive conditions when the benefits from using non-voting shares outweigh its costs.
Equity Ownership in IPO Issuers by Brokerage Firms and Analyst Research Coverage, January 2022. (Under Revision.) (with Qiang Kang and Xi Li)
Abstract: Extensive research shows that analysts have strong conflicts of interest when their brokerage firms are IPO lead underwriters. Our study is the first to examine whether brokerage firms’ venture capital ownership in IPOs affects their research coverage, which raises similar conflicts of interest concerns. Alternatively, brokerage shareholdings can enhance analysts’ credibility with investors and reduce overly optimistic recommendations. We find affiliated analyst recommendations are less optimistic and produce larger abnormal announcement returns than those of unaffiliated analysts, especially for stocks with greater information asymmetry. Thus, having venture capital investment and analyst coverage under one umbrella appears to benefit IPO investors.
Corporate Financial Constraints, Minimum Wage Policies and Employment, January 2026. (3rd Round Review at the Review of Financial Studies and Presented at the Ph.D. Poster Session of the 2024 American Finance Association Annual Meetings and the 2024 FMA Annual Meeting, the 2025 Midwest Finance Association and the 2025 ABFER Annual Meetings.) (with Alona Bilokha, Iftekhar Hasan and Stefano Manfredonia) (with Alona Bilokha, Iftekhar Hasan and Stefano Manfredonia)
Abstract: We examine how financial constraints shape firms' employment responses to minimum wage policies. Exploiting the federal minimum wage increase during the financial crisis and variation in firms' debt maturity structures at the crisis onset, we find that financially constrained firms significantly reduce employment. To assess external validity, we analyze staggered state-level minimum wage increases over time. Consistent with the crisis evidence, employment declines in establishments of constrained firms, whereas unconstrained firms expand in areas with a larger supply of minimum-wage workers and higher turnover. Our results highlight the central role of financial constraints in mediating labor policy effects.
Reproductive Rights and Female Inventor Productivity. January 2026. (with Xinru Chen, Iftekhar Hasan and Incheol Kim)
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of restricting reproductive rights of female inventors by analyzing the impacts of the staggered rollout of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws. We find that following the enactment of these laws, female inventor productivity significantly falls: a typical female inventor in a state with a TRAP law produces 7.7% fewer patents and receives 16.3% fewer citations. At the firm level, the share of patents with female inventors falls by 3.6%, and the proportion of female inventors in the workforce drops by 1.0%. We identify two key channels for this decline: first, restrictive laws hinder the cross-state mobility of skilled women to innovative firms in TRAP states; and second, TRAP laws induce a form of workplace disengagement, like "quiet quitting", whereby affected female inventors become less motivated and committed as their job satisfaction declines. Our findings suggest that limiting reproductive rights diminishes the returns on human capital investment for women.
Common Ownership and Antitrust Enforcement: Evidence from the Courts. June 2025, (First Round Revision Requested by the Journal of Corporate Finance and Presented at the 2022 Conference on Legal Empirical Studies in Charlottesville VA, the 2022 Financial Research Network Conference in Hamilton Island and the 2022 FMA Asia-Pacific Conference in Melbourne. Featured in the 2024 Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.) (with Huaizhou Li, Leo Liu and Jason Zein)
Abstract: To examine the impact of common ownership on antitrust concerns, we compile a comprehensive dataset of U.S. antitrust litigation cases from the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and consumers. We do not find a robust relationship between the common ownership between two firms and the likelihood of them being jointly sued, which would suggest illegal collusion. Furthermore, common ownership is negatively linked to potential collusion facilitators like interlocking directors and competitor-benchmarked executive pay. Along with evidence from institutional mergers and S&P 500 additions of rival firms, our results challenge the view that common ownership promotes illegal collusion.