Publications and Accepted Papers


Prepared to be forthcoming, Annual Review of Financial Economics


Conditionally Accepted at the Review of Financial Studies 

Policy & Press: 2023 Economic Report of the President (CEA), Realtor.com


Forthcoming at the Journal of Financial Economics 

[Journal Link] [Replication Package]

Policy & Press: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance Blog Post


Working Papers


Business as Usual: Bank Net Zero Commitments, Lending and Engagement, with D. Marques-Ibanez and E. Verner

Abstract: We use administrative credit registry data from Europe to study the impact of voluntary lender net zero commitments. We have two sets of findings. First, we find no evidence of lender divestment. Net zero banks neither reduce credit supply to the sectors they target for decarbonization nor do they increase financing for renewables projects. Second, we find no evidence of reduced financed emissions through engagement. Borrowers of net zero banks are not more likely to set decarbonization targets or reduce their verified emissions.  Our estimates rule out even moderate-sized effects. These results highlight the limits of voluntary commitments for decarbonization.


When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets, with I. Sen and A.M. Tenekedijieva 

Abstract: This paper studies how homeowners insurance markets respond to growing climate losses and how this impacts mortgage market dynamics. Using Florida as a case study, we show that traditional insurers are exiting high risk areas, and new lower quality insurers are entering and filling the gap. These new insurers service the riskiest areas, are less diversified, hold less capital, and 20 percent of them become insolvent. Yet, despite their low quality, these insurers secure high financial stability ratings, not from traditional rating agencies, but from emerging rating agencies. Importantly, these ratings are high enough to meet the minimum rating requirements set by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). We find that these new insurers would not meet GSE eligibility thresholds if subjected to traditional rating agencies’ methodologies. We then examine the implications of these dynamics for mortgage markets. We show that lenders respond to the decline in insurance quality by selling a large portion of exposed loans to the GSEs. We quantify the counterparty risk by examining the surge in serious delinquencies and foreclosure around the landfall of Hurricane Irma. Our results show that the GSEs bear a large share of insurance counterparty risk, which is driven by their mis-calibrated insurer eligibility requirements and lax insurance regulation.


Climate Risk and the U.S. Insurance Gap: Measurement, Drivers and Implications, with T. Scharleman, I. Sen and A.M. Tenekedijieva 

(Draft Available on Request)

Invited for dual submission at the Review of Financial Studies

It is widely believed that U.S. households are under-insured, but limited granular data on insurance has made this difficult to measure. This project develops a new methodology to construct the first U.S.-wide, long term dataset on homeowners insurance premiums and coverage at the individual level. We combine mortgage servicing, deeds, and property tax data, and then employ a novel algorithm to back out insurance payments from recurring mortgage payments made through escrow accounts. We then estimate coverage amounts from payments using data on insurance pricing functions. We validate our estimates using newly available data on insurance information for a subset of mortgage borrowers. We find that under-insurance is a significant problem, particularly for vulnerable borrowers in high climate risk states and with the lowest FICO scores. We show under-insurance is driven both by elastic borrowers reacting to rising premiums, as well as by behavioral inertia that limits updating coverage as inflation and construction costs change. We finally study the broader implications of under-insurance for mortgage and real estate markets.


Works in Progress

Specialized Banks Solve Corporate Short-termism: Evidence from Transition Investments, with A. Morse and K. Blickle

Financing Green Capital Accumulation, with O. Darmouni