Research

On the role of capital markets in the digital economy:

• Going Digital: Implications for Firm Value and Performance (with Suraj Srinivasan)

  • Abstract: We examine firm value and performance implications of the growing trend of non-technology companies engaging in activities relating to digital technologies. We measure digital activities in firms based on the disclosure of digital words in the business description section of 10-Ks. Digital activities are associated with a market-to-book ratio 8-26% higher than industry peers, and only 25% of the differences in market-to-book is explained by accounting capitalization restrictions. To control for selection bias, we implement lagged dependent variable and IV regressions, and we find that our market-to-book findings are robust to these specifications. Portfolios formed on digital activity disclosure earn a DGTW-adjusted return of 30% over a 3-year horizon and a monthly alpha of 44-basis-points. On the other hand, we find weak evidence of near-term, positive improvements in fundamental performance, as we find some evidence of interim productivity increases, but declines in sales growth conditional on digital activities.

  • Published at the Review of Accounting Studies.

  • Presented at the MIT Asia Accounting Conference, 2nd Conference on Intelligent Information Retrieval in Accounting and Finance, American Accounting Association Annual Meeting, HBS Digital Initiative Doctoral Workshop, Hawaii Accounting Research Conference, Korean Accounting Information Association Webinar, Stanford Accounting Summer Camp.

• Analyst Focus on AI and Corporate Demand for AI Technologies (solo-authored)

  • Presented at the HBS Digital Initiative Doctoral Workshop, University of Hong Kong, University of Chicago, University of California (Berkeley), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Singapore Management University, Boston College, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Waterloo, NBER Productivity Lunch Seminar.

• Data-Driven Technologies and the Local Information Advantages in Small Business Lending (with Jung Koo Kang and Aditya Mohan)

  • Presented at the Canadian Accounting Academics Annual Conference, Chinese Accounting Professors' Association of North America Annual Conference, AAA Annual Meeting, Research Conference on Capital Market Research in the Era of AI, Hawaii Accounting Research Conference, Financial Accounting and Reporting Section Mid-Year Meeting (co-author presented). Haskayne Conference (co-author presented).

• The Value of AI Innovations (with Terrence Shi, Suraj Srinivasan and Saleh Zakerina)

  • Presented at China Europe International Business School, Tsinghua University, Harvard Business School (co-author presented), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hawaii Accounting Research Conference (co-author presented).

• Digital Transformation in Private Equity (with Brian Baik and Suraj Srinivasan)

  • Presented at Harvard Business School (co-author presented), Shenzhen Technology University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, National University of Singapore.

On corporate governance:

• Chinese Retail Investor Flows and Shareholder Governance (solo-authored)

  • Presented at the 2nd Boston Corporate Governance Workshop, Doctoral Consortium at the Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference, Pacific-Basin Finance, Economics, Accounting and Management Conference and Virtual Chinese Accounting and Finance Review Conference.

• Activist-Driven Spinoffs (with Suraj Srinivasan)

  • Presented at the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting, the Global Finance Conference and Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference.

• Do Sustainability Ratings Induce ESG Window-Dressing in Mutual Funds? (with Haifeng You and Kevin Chen)

  • Presented at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, AAA Annual Meeting and the ABFER Annual Conference.

On spinoffs transactions:

• Performance and Information Environment Consequences of Spin-offs (with Suraj Srinivasan)

  • Presented at the University of South California (co-author presented), Cornell University (co-author presented), Georgia State University (co-author presented), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (co-author presented), the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting and HKAAA Junior Accounting Faculty Conference.

• Investors Reward Companies That Talk Up Their Digital Initiatives (with Suraj Srinivasan)

  • Summary: A study of how companies disclose their digital initiatives on earnings calls and written communications finds that more firms are using these technologies; that financial markets reward companies that disclose such initiatives; but that financial performance improvements are mixed. The results also show that markets tend to see execution risk in such initiatives, discounting whether management will be able to deliver on its promises when implementing technology.

  • Harvard Business Review (June 2019)

• Mars' atmosphere: The sister planet, our statistical twin (with Shaun Lovejoy and J. P. Muller)

  • Abstract: Satellite-based Martian reanalyses have allowed unprecedented comparisons between our atmosphere and that of our sister planet, underlining various similarities and differences in their respective dynamics. Yet by focusing on large scale structures and deterministic mechanisms they have improved our understanding of the dynamics only over fairly narrow ranges of (near) planetary scales. However, the Reynolds numbers of the flows on both planets are larger than 1011 and dissipation only occurs at centimetric (Mars) or millimetric scales (Earth) so that over most of their scale ranges, the dynamics are fully turbulent. In this paper, we therefore examine the high-level, statistical, turbulent laws for the temperature, horizontal wind, and surface pressure, finding that Earth and Mars have virtually identical statistical exponents so that their statistics are very similar over wide ranges. Therefore, it would seem that with the exception of certain aspects of the largest scales (such as the role of dust in atmospheric heating on Mars, or of water in its various phases on Earth), that the nonlinear dynamics are very similar. We argue that this is a prediction of the classical laws of turbulence when extended to planetary scales and that it supports our use of turbulent laws on both planetary atmospheres.

  • Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2016) 121(6): 11,968-11,988