Ongoing Research


Selected Working Papers:

Abstract- Organizational ambidexterity, pursuing explorative and exploitative innovation simultaneously, depends on conditions that protect managers from short-term accountability pressures. Existing research attributes these conditions to internal factors: structural design, equity incentives, and slack resources. We argue that the maturity structure of corporate debt independently shapes managerial capacity for exploration by governing the temporal horizon and intensity of creditor monitoring. We test this using 32,528 firm-year observations across 2,983 firms in 30 economies from 1990 to 2014. Our central finding is theoretically precise: longer debt maturity increases explorative innovation significantly but has no effect on exploitative innovation. This asymmetry rules out a resource-availability explanation and confirms a governance mechanism; the accountability regime, not resource levels, drives the behavioral shift. We make three contributions. First, we extend ambidexterity theory by identifying debt maturity as a structural enabler of exploration that prior research has overlooked. Second, we nuance agency theory by showing that creditor monitoring improves governance for exploitation but inhibits exploration. Third, the conditions enabling ambidexterity are shaped not only by internal organizational design but also by firms' external financing choices.


Abstract- This paper examines the role of global financial cycle in driving banks’ systemic risk through non-core channels by studying a panel of 387 European banks over the period of 2005 to 2019. We start by decomposing banks’ systemic risk to identify the role of non-core assets and liabilities in the build-up of systemic risk in banks’ balance sheets. Next, we empirically show that the sensitivity of systemic risk to the global financial cycle is amplified by banks’ reliance on non-core wholesale funding (as opposed to traditional safer deposits) and noncore investments (as opposed to traditional lending). We find that non-core funding channel was particularly relevant during the global liquidity phase leading up to the global financial crisis, but has since diminished, while the channel of non-core investments has gained importance in the post-crisis period. Further, we also find that banks which are larger in size, have cross-border operations, and operate in countries with more financial integration are particularly more exposed to the global financial cycle via the non-core channels. Overall, these results are crucial for better understanding the risk spillovers from global financial cycles on financial stability.


Abstract- This paper documents the emergence of a regional financial cycle in Asia, evidenced by commonality in regional bank flows, and its impact on domestic credit. Using a dataset of 24,169 non-financial Indian firms for the period 2001-2019, we establish that the regional financial cycle has a positive and significant impact on domestic corporate debt, as opposed to an insignificant effect on foreign currency corporate debt, after controlling for the global financial cycle. We find that both interbank markets and monetary policy conditions in the region act as transmission channels for this effect. We show that transparent firms which have lower monitoring costs are relatively more exposed to the regional financial cycle, suggesting that affiliates of foreign banks play an important role. However, the exposure of domestic credit markets reduces once regulators institute more stringent policy actions such as macroprudential policies, selective capital controls and floating currency regimes.


Abstract- This analysis explores the implications of technological shifts towards greener and sustainable innovations on acquisition propensity between firms with different technological capacities. Using a dataset of completed control acquisition deals over the period of 2009-2020 from 23 OECD countries, we find that innovative firms are more likely to acquire innovative target companies. We also find that green acquirors (i.e. firms with green patents) are more inclined to enter into acquisition deals with green firms, possibly due to their technological proximity and informational advantages which further enhances their post-acquisition green innovation performances. Our results also show an increase in green acquisitions after the Paris Agreement by non-green acquiror firms, and these are more pronounced for acquirors in climate policy relevant sectors and countries with low environmental standards than their counterparts. However, green acquisitions after the Paris Agreement do not show any significant impact on their post-acquisition innovation performances, raising concerns related to greenwashing behaviour by investing firms.