RESEARCH
RESEARCH
My research asks how information, incentives, regulation, and institutional design shape financial behavior and market outcomes. I pursue these questions across corporate and household finance, prediction markets and market design, and financial technology. The projects below emphasize economically important questions with implications for market design, regulation, firms, households, and public policy.
A. Primary Areas of Research
Fintech & Cryptocurrency: Deeply analyzes decentralization architecture, prediction markets, and stablecoin stability.
Perpetual Futures: Evaluates how leverage boundaries, funding rule tracking intensities, and contract mechanics affect speculative market bubbles.
Tokenized Securities & Regulation: Focuses on balancing the preservation of network composability with on-chain ledger transparency and enforcement architecture.
Climate & Sustainable Finance: Investigates funding structures related to renewable energy and environmental market transitions
B. Featured Research
Polls, Politics and Disaster Relief: Evidence from Federal SBA Loan Programs
with S. Abraham Ravid, Kose John, and Jongmoo Jay Choi | Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Corporate Finance
We study whether disaster relief responds only to economic need or also to political incentives. The evidence shows that the generosity of federal SBA disaster lending varies with presidential popularity and the political salience of disasters.
Optimal Regulation of Insider Trading in Prediction Markets
with Kose John | working paper
Prediction markets depend on informed participation, but information advantages can also discourage the crowd whose trades make prices informative. The model identifies an interior enforcement rule and shows how optimal enforcement varies with the provenance of information.
Cultural Hypocrisy and Regulatory Betrayal: A Catalyst for Harsher Penalties
with Kose John | working paper
Firms with stronger corporate cultures face harsher regulatory penalties when misconduct occurs, consistent with regulators and investors penalizing the betrayal of stronger ethical expectations.
Financial Flexibility in the Gig Economy: The Impact of Ridesharing on Mortgage Loan Terms
solo-authored | working paper
Driver-friendly ridesharing laws are associated with lower mortgage interest rates, consistent with lenders valuing access to supplementary income as household financial flexibility.
C. Corporate & Household Finance — Working Papers
Mass Shootings Exposure and Angel Investments
with Mathias Awani
Mass Shootings and Housing Demand: Evidence from Belief Updating
with Kose John
The Agency Cost of Sexual Harassment
with Kose John
Sexual Harassment Severity and Board Gender Diversity: Evidence from Federal District Courts
with Kose John and Stefano Bonini
Labor Representation, Management, Leverage, and Employee Outcomes
with Kose John and S. Abraham Ravid
D. Prediction Markets & Market Design — Working Papers
Prediction Markets as Shadow Financial Markets: Completion, Risk Migration, and the Limits of Product-Based Regulation
with Kose John
Studies when event contracts complete markets and when they instead relocate already-spanned risk, generating implications for regulatory design.
Fixed Payoffs and Floating Prices: Self-Fulfilling Bubbles in On-Chain Prediction Markets
solo-authored
Shows how full collateralization and costly contrarian trading can sustain longshot overpricing and generate multiple equilibria in on-chain prediction markets.
The Microstructure of Conditional Prediction Markets: A Theory of Selection, Multiplicity, and Mode Collapse in Futarchy
solo-authored
Develops a theory of selection bias, equilibrium multiplicity, and dynamic instability in conditional prediction markets.
Fintech, Stablecoins & Blockchain Economics — Working Papers
Transparency and Stablecoin Runs
with Kose John
Studies how transparency affects beliefs, coordination, and run risk in stablecoin markets.
[Add only the strongest additional stablecoin, tokenization, or blockchain papers here. Keep early-stage projects under “Work in Progress” rather than presenting every idea as a working paper.]
E. Peer-Reviewed Publications
Retail motor gasoline prices and the interest rate on mortgage loans
European Financial Management, 31(1), 115–174, 2025. Solo-authored.
Shows how gasoline prices are reflected in mortgage pricing and how alternative-fuel policies and public transit moderate that relationship.
Firm leverage and employee pay: The moderating role of CEO leadership style
International Review of Financial Analysis, 95, 103382, 2024. With Jongmoo Jay Choi and Kose John.
Shows that CEO leadership style changes how leverage affects employee pay and the bargaining relationship between firms and labor.
COVID-19 mortality risk premium and the interest rate on mortgage loans
International Review of Financial Analysis, 93, 103183, 2024. Solo-authored.
Documents a COVID-19 mortality risk premium in mortgage rates and identifies borrower health concerns as the dominant mechanism.
Natural disasters, public attention and changes in capital structure: international evidence
Annals of Finance, 20(2), 199–238, 2024. Solo-authored.
Examines how public attention to natural disasters affects firms’ access to debt and equity financing following severe events.
Health uninsurance premium and mortgage interest rates
International Review of Financial Analysis, 87, 102647, 2023. Solo-authored.
Shows that lenders price local health-uninsurance risk into mortgage rates and that the premium changes with borrower and policy conditions.
F. Research Profiles
SSRN author page | Stevens research profile | Google Scholar