Associate Professor of Finance
- Fellow, SLU Research Institute
- Research Associate, Taylor Geospatial Institute
Saint Louis University Chaifetz School of Business
Affiliate Fellow
Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
On the capital market consequences of alternative data: Evidence from outer space (with Zsolt Katona, Panos Patatoukas, and Jean Zeng), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 60 (2), 2025, 551-579
Summary: Satellite imagery is informative of future stock prices. This creates opportunities for sophisticated investors, who can afford the costs of acquiring and processing satellite imagery data, to formulate profitable trading strategies at the expense of individual investors, who tend to be on the other side of the trade. The increased asymmetric information harms liquidity.
Presentations: 9th Miami Behavioral Finance Conference Doctoral Poster Session | the Future of Financial Information conference (Stockholm, 2019) | the 6th University of Connecticut Finance Conference (2020, cancelled) | FMA (2019) | University of Kentucky
Media mentions: The Atlantic | New Scientist | Quartz | Yahoo! Finance | Canadian Investment Review | Haas Newsroom
The Value of Differing Points of View: Evidence from Financial Analysts' Geographic Diversity (with Will Gerken), Review of Financial Studies, 36 (2), 2023, 409-449
Lead article, Editor's Choice
Summary: Sell side analysts incorporate geographically dispersed information about firms into forecasts. Limited analyst geographic diversity adversely affects consensus forecasts and firm liquidity. The market recognizes the value of geographic diversity.
Presentations: University of Kentucky | University of Missouri | Miami University | New Technologies in Finance Conference (Columbia Business School) | Wolfe Research NLP and Machine Learning Investment Mangement Conference (2020) | the 2nd Future of Financial Information conference (Stockholm, 2020) | EFA (2020) | NFA (2020) | NBER Big Data and Securities Markets Conference (2020) | Georgia State University | FIRS (2021) | Indiana University | University of Washington
Media mentions: Wall Street Journal | SLU Newsroom | National Affairs Blog
Unmasking Partisanship: Polarization Undermines Public Response to Collective Risk (with Maria Milosh, Konstantin Sonin, David Van Djicke, and Austin Wright) 2021, Journal of Public Economics 204, 104538
Summary: Partisanship is the single most important predictor of local face mask use.
Political Beliefs affect Compliance with Government Mandates (with Tian Qiu) 2021, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 185, 688-701
Summary: Residents in Republican counties are less likely to socially distance after a state stay-at-home order has been implemented relative to those in Democratic counties. Democrats comply less when a mandate is issued by a Republican Governor.
Covid Economics, 4, 103-127, April 2020
Media mentions: VoxEU | The New York Times | The Washington Post | FiveThirtyEight | Marginal Revolution | The Boston Globe | National Affairs Blog | Reform Austin | SafeGraph Blog
An inconvenient cost: The effects of climate change on municipal bonds 2020, Journal of Financial Economics 135 (2), 468-482
GARP Oustanding Paper in Risk Management Award (2018)
Cited in the Economic Report of the President (March, 2023)
Summary: Counties more likely to be affected by climate change pay significantly more in underwriting fees and initial yields to issue long-term municipal bonds compared to counties that are unlikely to be affected by climate change.
Cited by the Congressional Research Service in a report to the U.S. Congress on Climate Change and U.S. Financial Regulators (Aug 26, 2021)
Presentations: MFA (2018) | Eastern FA (2018) | FMA Special PhD Paper Presentations (2018) | Saint Louis University | University of Kentucky
Media mentions: Bloomberg | Business Insider | Dimensional Fund Advisors | MunicipalBonds.com | UCLA Anderson Review | Harvard Kennedy School's Journalist Resource | National Affairs Blog | Network for Business Sustainability | Utility Dive
Watching the watchdogs: Tracking SEC Inquiries using Geolocation Data (with Will Gerken, Steve Irlbeck, and Guangli Zhang)
Summary: We provide new insights into the SEC's monitoring practices by tracking SEC-associated smartphone devices that visit firm headquarters. SEC visits occur outside of formal investigations and happen more often at large firms and those with previous violations. Stock prices tend to drop after an SEC visit. Firm insiders are less likely to sell shares around a visit, but those that do avoid significant losses.
Presentations: 2023 Stigler Center Affiliate Fellows Conference at University of Chicago, 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting, University of Dayton, FMA 2024 , FRA 2024, AEA 2025, 7th FutFinInfo Conference, MFA 2025, Oregon Summer Finance Conference (scheduled), NFA 2025 (scheduled), SFA 2025 (scheduled), University of Nebraska, University of New Hampshire, Washington University in St. Louis
Media Mentions: Financial Times | Bloomberg | Money Stuff: The Podcast | Fast Company | Marginal Revolution | Columbia Law Blue Sky Blog | ProMarket | The Daily Upside
Disclosure Complexity, Regulatory Burden, and the Cost of Capital (with Mike Farrell, Dermot Murphy, and Guangli Zhang)
Summary: Primary market disclosures for municipal bonds have become increasingly complex, even though bonds with more complex statements cost more to issue. We analyze the reasons for writing complex disclosures in the muni space, including clientele effects, regulatory burden, and risk-based channels.
Presentations: Dayton Summer Finance Workshop (2022), CUNY-Queens, Southern Illinois University, the Virtual Municipal Finance Conference, the Brookings Municipal Finance Conference, Midwest Finance Association (2024), Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (2024)
Firm Statements, Consumer Political Beliefs, and the Limits of Stakeholder Capitalism
Revise and Resubmit at The Review of Corporate Finance Studies
FMA Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award (2021)
Summary: Walmart's decision to ban open carry in stores and encourage Congress to strengthen gun control laws led to store visit decreases in highly Republican counties and increases in highly Democratic counties, highlighting the challenges of stakeholder capitalism amidst an increasingly polarized political landscape.
This paper was formerly titled "Consumer response to corporate political statements: Evidence from geolocation data"
Presentations: Political Economy of Finance 2020 at Chicago Booth | the 17th Washington University St. Louis Corporate Finance Conference | Middle Tennessee State University | FMA (2021) | MFA (2022) | National University of Singapore
Media mentions: The Economist | Financial Times | Chicago Booth Review | ProMarket.org | National Affairs Blog
Non-Standard Errors (with 342 coauthors) 2024, the Journal of Finance 79 (3): 2339-2390.
I was on one of the 164 research teams that independently tested the same market-microstructure hypotheses on EuroStoxx 50 futures data
Milton Friedman 50 Years Later - eBook
My article, "Pursuing Stakeholder Capitalism Is an Impossible Task When Stakeholders Have Different Beliefs," is included in this eBook. Published by ProMarket, the publication of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 2020
Climate Change and Asset Prices - A Review of the Literature
Fall 2022, Fall 2023
2019 - Current
Summer 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019