Academic Experiences

2020 --- present                      Associate Professor of Finance (Senior Lecturer), Lancaster University

2019 --- 2020                           Assistant Professor of Finance (Lecturer), Lancaster University

2014 --- 2019                           Assistant Professor of Finance (fixed-term), University of Bern

2018 Fall, 2016 Fall              Visiting Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University

Research Interests

Corporate finance, Executive compensation, Real effects of financial markets, Sustainable Finance

Education

2010 --- 2013                 PhD in Finance, University of Zurich and Swiss Finance Institute

2007 --- 2010                 Research Scholar in Finance, Norwegian School of Economics

2005 --- 2007                 Master in Applied Mathematics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Publications

The Effect of Stock Liquidity on Cash Holdings: The Repurchase Motive, with Kjell Nyborg, Journal of Financial Economics 142 (2021), 905-927.

Does the Stock Market Make Firms More Productive?, with Benjamin Bennett and René M. Stulz, Journal of Financial Economics 136 (2020): 281-306.

Working papers

Corporate Pension Risk-Taking in a Low Interest Rate Environment, with Vasso Ioannidou and Roberto Pinto

Does Greater Public Scrutiny Hurt a Firm’s Performance?, with Benjamin Bennett and René M. Stulz

Does Enhanced Disclosure Curb CEO Pay? Evidence from a Modern Information Technology Improvement, with Ilona Babenka, and Benjamin Bennett


The Effect of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Payout Policies: The Role of Corporate Governance, with Ana Albuquerque, Benjamin Bennett, and Petro Lisowsky

Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance, with Benjamin Bennett, Isil Erel, and Lea Stern

The Implementation of Central Bank Policy in China: The Roles of Commercial Bank Ownership and CEO Faction Membership, with Michel Habib, Yushi Peng, and Yanjie Wang

How Executive Compensation Changes In Response to Personal Income Tax Shocks, with Benjamin Bennett and Jeffrey Coles

Do Informative Stock Prices Simplify Executive Compensation? with Benjamin Bennett,  Gerald Garvey, and Todd Milbourn

Corporate Investment Under the Cloud of Litigation, with Benjamin Bennett, Charles Ham, and Todd Milbourn

Why Do Firms Use Equity-based Pay? Managerial Compensation and Stock Price Informativeness, with Benjamin Bennett,  Gerald Garvey, and Todd Milbourn

Work in progress (selected)

Are Greener Firms More Valuable?, with Benjamin Bennett

Pay for Complexity, with Ilona Babenka, and Benjamin Bennett

Concentrated Ownership and Firm Performance, with Benjamin Bennett, Beau Page, and Lea Stern

Teaching Experiences

Applied Corporate Finance (graduate, Lancaster)

Advanced Corporate Finance II (doctoral AcF857, Lancaster)

Principles of Finance (undergraduate AcF214L, Lancaster)

IPO (undergraduate AcF351b, Lancaster) 

International Finance (undergraduate, Bern) 

Empirical Corporate Finance (graduate, Bern)