My research sits at the intersection of financial markets, human behaviour and sustainability. I work across three main areas: credit risk, where I study how default risk is priced in corporate and sovereign markets, including credit default swap markets; behavioural finance and media, where I examine how news, sentiment and economic narratives influence financial markets; and climate risk, where I explore how global warming affects the default risk of firms, particularly smaller businesses that are often overlooked in the existing literature.

My early work with Lina El-Jahel on the pricing of defaultable bonds introduced a hybrid credit risk model that has been cited in academic textbooks and applied by researchers in the field.

My research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and published in leading journals including the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Journal of Money Credit and Banking and the European Journal of Finance. I have presented my work at the American Finance Association, European Finance Association and Western Finance Association conferences.

Working Papers

Recent working papers

• Bond Ratings, Disagreement, and Volatility: Early Evidence”  with Mascia Bedendo and Lina El-Jahel.

• “The impact of global warming on small and micro European firms”  with Zhenghong Ding, Alfonso Dufour, and Simone Varotto. 

• "Climate Regulatory Exposure and the Stock Market: Evidence from the Trump Elections" with Salim Baz, Alex Michaelides, Liying Wang and Yi Zhang.

Work in Progress

• “The impact of sentiment and attention on the credit default swaps and equity markets” with Lina El-Jahel and Shi Yining

• “Media, economic activity and macroeconomic expectations” with Salim Baz and Alex Michaelides

Older working paper

• “Doubly stochastic jump diffusion models of the term structure of interest rates” with Lina El-Jahel

• “Defaultable bonds and default correlation” with Lina El-Jahel

Publications

• “Media and Business Cycle Predictability” (2026) with Salim Baz, Alex Michaelides, forthcoming Journal of Forecasting

• “Rain or Shine, Default Risks Align: Exploring the Climate-Default Nexus in Small and Micro Firms” (2026) with Zhenghong Ding, Alfonso Dufour,Ludovico Rossi and Simone Varotto, forthcoming European Journal of Finance

• “Corporate bond pricing: Does sentiment matter?” (2026) with Lachlan Michalski, Rand Low and Lina El-Jahel, Journal of Fixed Income, Vol 35

• “Lebanon: from dollars to Lollars” (2025) with Salim Baz, Alex Michaelides, International Finance, https://doi.org/10.1111/infi.12459

• “Corporate bankruptcy and banking competition: The effect of financial leverage” (2024) with Alfonso Dufour, Lodovico Rossi and Simone Varotto, Journal of Banking and Finance Vol 166, 107219.

• “The differential impact of leverage on the default risk of small and large firms” (2020) with Alfonso Dufour, Lodovico Rossi and Simone Varotto, Journal of Corporate Finance Vol 20 Pages 1-36

• "News sentiment and sovereign credit risk" (2020) with Nina Gotthelf, Uhl Matthias and Shi Yining, European Financial Management Vol 26 Pages: 261-287

• Excess comovement in credit default swap markets: Evidence from CDX indices (2019) with and Lina- El-Jahel. Leo Evans and Yining Shi, Journal of Financial Markets, Vol 43 Pages:96-120

• “Reputational shocks and the information content of credit rating” (2018) with Mascia Bedendo and Lina- El-Jahel, Journal of Financial Stability Vol:34 Pages 44-60

• “Basel II: An engine without brakes” (2017) with Lina El-Jahel and Ravel Jabbour Journal of Banking Regulation Vol: 18 Pages 359-374

• “Distressed debt restructuring in the presence of credit default swaps” (2016) with Mascia Bedendo and Lina- El-Jahel, Journal of Money Credit and Banking. Vol:48 Pages 165-201

• “ Implied liquidity risk in the term structure of sovereign credit default swaps” (2016) with Lina El-Jahel and Saad Badaoui, European Journal of Finance Vol:22 Pages 825-953

• “Can regulators allow banks to set their own capital ratios?” (2015) with Lina El-Jahel and Ravel Jabbour, Journal of Banking and Finance. Vol:53 Pages 112-123

• “Do sovereign credit default swaps represents a clean measure of sovereign default risk? A Factor Model Approach” (2013) with Lina El-Jahel and Saad Badaoui, Journal of Banking and Finance Vol:37, Pages 2392-2407

• “'The correlation structure of the CDS market: An empirical investigation” (2013) with Lina El-Jahel and Leo Evans, Journal of Fixed Income Vol:22, Pages:53-74

• “Market vs model CDS spreads: Mind the gap!” (2011) with Mascia Bedendo and Lina El-Jahel, European Financial Management,Vol. 17, Issue 4, pp. 655-678

• “How to use the slope of the term structure of credit spreads” (2008) with Mascia Bedendo and Lina El-Jahel, Professional Investor, Spring issue, pp. 34-41

• “The slope of the term structure of credit spreads: An empirical investigation” (2007) with Lina El-Jahel and Mascia Bedendo, Journal of Financial Research, Vol. 30, issue 2, pp 237-257

• “Pricing defaultable bonds: A middle way approach between structural and reduce form models” (2006) with Lina El-Jahel, Quantitative Finance, Vol. 6, pp 243-253

• “Trading down the slopes” (2005) with Mascia Bedendo, Lina El-Jahel and Lorenzo Liesch, Risk, Vol. 18, pp. 107-109

• “Multiple defaults and Merton’s model” (2004) with Lina El-Jahel, Journal of Fixed Income, Vol. 14, pp. 60-69

• “Semi-analytical pricing of defaultable bonds in a signaling jump-default model” (2003) with Lina El-Jahel, Journal of Computational Finance, Vol. 6, pp. 91-108

• “Valuation of defaultable bonds” (1998) with Lina El-Jahel, Journal of Fixed Income, Vol. 8, pp. 65-78

• “The pricing of floating rate instruments” (1998) Journal of Computational Finance, Vol. 1, pp. 31-51

Editorial Positions

• Associate Editor European Journal of Finance  2012-

• Associate Editor International Review of Finance 2025-

• Associate Editor- Journal of Banking and Finance 2015-2018