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Working papers
Working papers
The Value of Pricing Power When Investors Benchmark to Headline Inflation
(with Alexander F. Wagner)
We study equity valuation when investors benchmark firms against headline inflation although pass-through varies across firms. In standard valuation, inflation is valueneutral even with heterogeneous pass-through if investors use firm-specific inflation. Benchmarking to headline inflation conflates nominal cash-flow growth with real performance and shifts discount rates at inflation announcements. Pricing power shapes both channels by enabling greater pass-through and reducing perceived inflation exposure. Empirically, higher-pricing-power firms exhibit smaller stock-price declines and smaller cost-of-capital increases following inflation surprises. The April 2025 tariff announcement yields similar pricing-power-based return differences. These results offer new insights into inflation's implications for asset pricing and valuation.
Conferences and Seminars (* scheduled): 2nd Lake District Workshop in Corporate Finance 2025, Tri-City Bridge Workshop on Empirical Research in Finance 2025, AFA Annual Meeting 2025 (Poster Session), BBLS Seminar at the University of Zurich Fall 2024, SFI Research Days 2024.
Work in progress
Work in progress
Financial Markets and Corporate Product Pricing
(single-authored)
Do financial markets influence how firms set product prices? I study this question using product-level data matched to publicly listed firms and construct novel firm-level measures of product price changes. I document substantial volatility in product price changes within and across firms, industries, and time. Using plausibly exogeneous variation in market scrutiny, I show that firms facing greater market scrutiny smooth product price responses to cost shocks. The evidence suggests that managers smooth price adjustments to avoid valuation penalties associated with deviations from salient inflation benchmarks used by investors. These findings highlight a financial-market channel affecting real pricing decisions.
Link to paper coming soon
Conferences and Seminars (* scheduled): BBLS University of Zurich Spring 2026*.
Subsidy Pass-Through in EV Financing
(with Winta Beyene and Philipp Klein)
Conferences and Seminars (* scheduled): SFI Research Days 2025, BBLS University of Zurich Spring 2025.
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