Working Papers:

"Managerial Beliefs and Agency Conflicts" [PDF] [SSRN] 

To what extent do executive compensation contracts mitigate the consequences of biased managerial beliefs? I answer this question using a dynamic investment model with agency conflicts in which managers may hold distorted beliefs about future cash flows. The optimal contract adjusts incentives to managerial beliefs, affecting investment, compensation, and firm value. Using data on managerial sales forecasts, I structurally estimate the model and find substantial heterogeneity in the direction and magnitude of belief distortions. The estimated contracts largely offset the consequences of these distortions: counterfactually replacing managers’ estimated beliefs with rational beliefs would have only a marginal effect on shareholder value. The results show that the impact of managerial expectation distortions is shaped by the incentive contracts firms write around them.

Presentations: EFA Doctoral Tutorial 2026, 10th HEC Paris Finance PhD Workshop in Memory of Denis Gromb, 6th Research in Behavioral Finance Conference, FMARC Doctoral Tutorial 2026, SFI Research Days 2026, 42nd AFFI, 2nd HKU Next-Gen Finance, USC Marshall, SFI USI Lugano
Award: FMARC 2026 Best Doctoral Paper

"Subjective Beliefs and the Q-theory of Investment" [PDF] [SSRN]
This paper studies how investors' and managers' subjective beliefs affect corporate investment and valuation. I develop a q-model that jointly includes managers' and investors' subjective beliefs. Their disagreement affects the implementation of q-theory even absent other frictions. Using micro-level sales forecast data, I test the predictions and estimate the model to quantify the role of beliefs. I find substantial heterogeneity in the direction and magnitude of belief distortions. My results show that the disagreement implies a larger gap between investment and valuation, requiring higher markups to reconcile the evidence. These results highlight the importance of departing from rational expectations when evaluating economic rents in corporate policies.

Presentations: AFA 2026 (poster), SFI Research Days 2025, USC Marshall PhD meeting, SFI USI Lugano

"The Horizon of Incentives and Corporate Policies" (with Loriano Mancini and Enrique Schroth)
We study how agency conflicts affect the horizon of corporate policies. We develop a multitasking dynamic contracting model, in which the manager exerts short-term effort affecting cash flows and long-term investment affecting growth. The optimal contract balances incentive provision over these two moral hazard problems. The model highlights that agency frictions endogenously determine optimal short- and long-termism corporate policies. We estimate the model at a granular level and document significant industry-level heterogeneity in the horizon of corporate policies. Controlling for the horizon distortion helps explain the disconnection between investment and valuation.