• Attention Constraints and Financial Inclusion

Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (2025)

With Bo Huang,  Jiacui Li, Tse-Chun Lin, Mingzhu Tai

Loan officer attention allocation under time constraints hinders financial inclusion.

• Serving Multiple ‘Masters’: Evidence from the Loan Decisions of a State-Owned Publicly Listed Bank Around a Massive Economic Stimulus Programme

Journal of Corporate Finance (2022)

With Hongqi Yuan and Joe Hong Zou

Explore state-owned bank's response to governmental countercyclical financing through internal credit rating allocation.

• Biodiversity Co-Benefits in Carbon Markets? Evidence from Voluntary Offset Projects

With Douglas Almond 

Uncover how market-driven carbon offset projects, despite biodiversity claims, can erode habitat integrity through monoculture expansion and land-use simplification. 

Awarded PARC Best Data and Metrics in Sustainable Finance Research Prize at the 2025 Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI) conference 

Presented at the Review of Finance Special Issue on Biodiversity and Natural Resource Finance Workshop, Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC)

Accepted at Review of Finance 

• The Curse of Green Shareholder Oversight: Evidence from Emission Spillover of Divested Plants 

Single-authored

Uncover how the pressure by climate-conscious shareholders can propagate greenhouse gases to asset owners under less oversight.

Awarded Semi-finalist of the Best Paper Award in Corporate Finance at 2023 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting

• The Unintended Externalities of an Environmental Regulation: Evidence from the NOx Budget Trading Program 

With Tse-Chun Lin and Joe Hong Zou 

Reveal unintended spillovers along the supply chain, which disproportionately impede air quality equity for underprivileged local communities.

Featured in HK Environmental Protection Department policy documents

Carbon Neutrality and Renewable Energy:

• P. Gao, Zoey Yiyuan Zhou, F. Meng, Y. Zhang, Z. Liu, W. Zhang and G. Xue. Preparation and characterization of hydrochar from waste eucalyptus bark by hydrothermal carbonization. Energy, 97 (2016): 238-245 

• Zoey Yiyuan Zhou, F. Meng, Z. Liu, G. Xue and P. Gao, Hydrothermal carbonization of waste eucalyptus bark. Materials Reports, 1(2015): 344-347.

Environmental Health and Engineering:

• K. Wang, K. Li, Zoey Yiyuan Zhou, F. Meng, Z. Liu, G. Xue and P. Gao. Adsorption characteristics of typical PPCPs onto river sediments and its influencing factors. Environmental Science, 36.3(2015): 847-854. 

Patent:

• Lead Inventor: A Method to Prepare Hydrochars Utilizing Municipal Effluent Biological Sludge

  • Patent Granted: 2016

• Investigator of General Research Fund (GRF) - US$105,415 - Ongoing 

• Co-Principal Investigator - Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research Thematic Research Programme - Ongoing 

• Co-Principal Investigator - HKU Jockey Club Research Grant - US$22,500 - Ongoing

• Co-Principal Investigator -  RGC Theme-based Research Scheme - US$6,190,000 - Ongoing

• Principal Investigator of General Research Fund Early Career Scheme (GRF- ECS) - US$67,665 - 2025 

• Investigator -  Green and Sustainable Fintech PoC Funding Support Scheme - US$19,300  - 2025 

• Co-Principal Investigator - Columbia University's ISERP Seed Research Grant - US$40,000 - 2025

• Principal Investigator - HKUST Equipment Fund - US$14,200 - 2025

• Geographic Information System (GIS)

• Natural Language Processing (NLP)

• Machine Learning (ML)