Targeted Philanthropy: Evidence from M&As, (SSRN), Journal of Finance, Forthcoming.
I show how firms optimize the allocation of charitable funds around investments that require external stakeholder support, such as M&As. Acquirers increase donations to target-related charities before making a takeover offer, but scale back funds after withdrawing from a deal. Firms redistribute funds from non-takeover-related areas to target insider-affiliated charities, employee communities, and counties with a regulatory presence. Targeted donations that encourage blockholder reciprocity and employee commitment are associated with better deal performance through decreased merger premiums and lower integration costs.
Selected conference presentations and awards: ASGE Session at AEA (2025), Drexel Corporate Governance Conference (2024), Best Paper Award at FIRN Women Conference (2023).
Informed Acquirers and M&A Outcomes, (SSRN), Review of Corporate Finance, Forthcoming.
I show that two-stage deals, in which an acquirer engages in a pre-takeover partnership with the target, trigger a trade-off between better decision making and an indirectly higher takeover price by increasing the target’s share price after the first-stage engagement. Two-stage deals are associated with lower integration costs, higher long-term performance, and higher completion likelihood, but also provide information about the target’s value to outside market participants. These results explain why an indirectly more costly takeover strategy may persist in equilibrium.
Selected conference presentations and awards: Best PhD Student Paper at the ECGI Workshop on Governance and Control (2018), Best Paper at FIRN Women Conference (2019)
Disaster Relief, Inc.: When is Corporate Philanthropy Good or Bad for Shareholders? (link) (with Hao Liang), Review of Finance, 2025, 29(3) 851-886.
We test the relative importance and conditions under which agency incentives and strategic benefits of corporate philanthropy dominate in the context of disaster relief donations. Although, on average, relief giving decreases returns, the strategic benefits of donating around salient and attention-grabbing events can mitigate these negative effects.
Selected conference presentations: ASGE Session at AEA (2023)
Covered by the Australian Financial Review (link).
Elective Stock and Scrip Dividends (link) (with Isabel Feito-Ruiz and Luc Renneboog), Journal of Corporate Finance, 2020, 64, 1016-60.
We find that firms pay scrip dividends, which give investors the choice between receiving new shares or the equivalent value as a cash dividend, for cash preservation purposes.
Selected conference presentations and awards: Best Paper Award at the Spanish Finance Forum Conference (2019)
Cross-Border Acquisitions and Employment Policies (link) (with Hao Liang and Luc Renneboog), Journal of Corporate Finance, 2020, 62, 1015-75.
Shareholders react more positively to M&A announcements by acquirers providing generous employee incentives when the deal is domestic, but negatively when the deal is cross-border, reflecting higher costs associated with managing employee policies across borders and lack of opportunities for eliminating work duplication in cross-border deals.
Selected conference presentations and awards: ECGI Global Corporate Governance Colloquia (2017), Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award at Indonesian FMA Conference (2019)
Failure and Success in Mergers and Acquisitions (link) (with Luc Renneboog), Journal of Corporate Finance, 2019, 58, 650-699.
We provide an overview of the academic literature on the market for corporate control, focusing specifically on firms' performance around and after a takeover. We identify the areas of research for which short-run returns predict (or fail to predict) long-run performance.
Creditor Rights, Claims Enforcement, and Bond Returns in Mergers and Acquisitions (link) (with Peter Szilagyi and Luc Renneboog), Journal of International Business Studies, 2017, 48(2), 174-194.
We find that bondholders of bidding firms respond more positively to cross-border deals that expose their firm to a jurisdiction with stronger creditor rights and more efficient claims enforcement through courts.
Covered by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
Leveraged Buyouts: Motives and Sources of Value (link) (with Luc Renneboog), Annals of Corporate Governance, 2017, 2(4), 291-389.
We provides an exhaustive literature review of the motives for public-to-private LBO transactions. We develop a theoretical framework for the potential sources of value creation from going private and summarize whether and how these theories have been empirically verified in the four different strands of literature in LBO research: Intent (of a buyout), Impact (of the LBO on the various stakeholders), Process (of restructuring after the leveraged buyout) and Duration (of retaining the private status).
Covered by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
Catalytic Capital: Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Mobilization of Private Investment for Social Goals (.pdf) (with Hao Liang)
We examine how sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) can catalyze private capital to address social externalities. Exploiting a 2021 board gender diversity campaign led by the world’s largest SWF, we show that responsible investors reallocated capital toward targeted firms, particularly those with limited pre-existing institutional ownership. These reallocations were associated with positive stock-market reactions and reductions in firms’ cost of capital. The resulting capital inflows reinforced collective engagement efforts – a dynamic not observed in comparable campaigns led by commercial investors. Overall, our findings highlight SWFs as a state-backed yet market-compatible mechanism for achieving socially desirable outcomes through investor mobilization.
Selected conference presentations: FIRN Corporate Finance meeting (2025), FIRN Women Conference (2025), HEC-HKUST Sustainable Finance Workshop (2024).
Indirect Influence: Philanthropy along the Supply Chain (.pdf) (with Huu Nhan Duong, Emdad Islam, and Lubna Rahman)
We identify charitable giving as a novel mechanism through which firms can indirectly influence trading relationships and trade outcomes. Exploiting exogenous changes in trading relations and philanthropic demand, we show that firms are 10% more likely to donate to charities in which their suppliers' managers and directors are active. Supplier-affiliated donations lead to higher trade credit extension, greater technological alignment, and more joint investment.
Selected conference presentations: FMA Annual Meeting (2024).
The Under-Disclosure of Environmental Innovation (SSRN) (with Leo Liu, Elvira Sojli, and Wing Wah Tham)
Government interventions to support firms' development of environmental technologies are most effective if they generate societal benefits through knowledge spillovers beyond innovating firms' private returns. We study the social and private returns of environmental technology disclosure through patent filings, and find that the social returns of disclosing 'clean' technologies exceed firms' private returns, indicating a systemic under-disclosure of clean technology.
Selected conference presentations: GRASFI Asia (2025), AEA (2025), HEC-HKUST Sustainable Finance Workshop (2025), AFRIC (2025), PRI Academic Network Conference (2024), SGFIN Sustainability Research Conference (2024), Conference in Sustainable Finance Luxembourg (2024), FIRN Corporate Finance Meeting (2024).
Politics to People: Establishment-Level Evidence on Non-Market Responses to Regulatory Risk (.pdf) (with Emdad Islam and Lubna Rahman)
Firms strengthen local stakeholder relations as a flexible substitute for political connections to manage regulatory risk. Exploiting local political connection losses following close congressional elections, we document a within-firm redistribution of discretionary resources towards employee-focused organizations in communities exposed to high workplace-related regulatory risk. These effects are concentrated in financially constrained firms for whom compliance is more challenging and in firms that do not hedge or re-establish political insurance. Shifting funds from politics to people affects real outcomes, highlighting the importance of optimizing resources across intangible production factors for performance.
Selected conference presentations: Conference on Empirical Legal Studies (2023), AFRIC (2025), FMA Annual Meeting (2025)
Employment-Based Consumer Preferences and Product Market Outcomes (SSRN) (with Jiaying Li)
Corporate Philanthropy and Biodiversity Governance (with Amir Akbari, Lilian Ng, and Anthony Rice)
Public-to-private leveraged buyouts (with Luc Renneboog), 2018, The Routledge Companion to Management Buyouts, Ed: M. Wright, D. Siegel, K. Amess, N. Bacon. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mergers and Acquisitions: Long-Run Performance and Success Factors (with Luc Renneboog), 2020, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance.