Working Papers
- Best paper award, USC Marshall PhD Conference in Finance
- HEC Paris Entrepreneurship Workshop
- HEC Paris Entrepreneurship Workshop
This study investigates how household wealth affects the human capital of startups, based on U.S. Census individual-level employment data, deed records, and geographic information system (GIS) data. Using floods as a wealth shock, a regression discontinuity analysis shows inundated residents are 7% less likely to work in startups relative to their neighbors outside the flood boundary, within a 0.1-mile-wide band. The effect is more pronounced for homeowners, consistent with the wealth effect. The career distortion leads to a significant long-run income loss, highlighting the importance of self-insurance for human capital allocation.
[2] “A Race to Lead: How Chinese Government Interventions Shape the U.S.-China Production Competition", with Vyacheslav Fos and Wei Jiang
- Featured in Bloomberg
- CICF, Columbia Business School, Texas A&M University
- CICF, Columbia Business School, Texas A&M University
Integrating establishment-level data for public and private firms from U.S. and China, we study the dynamic interdependence in industrial activities between the two economies. Births of Chinese firms predict same-industry firm exits and lowered employment in the U.S., but the relation in the reverse is not significant. China’s Five-Year Plans were not preceded by low production/employment in the same industries in the U.S., but were followed by shrinkage afterwards. The dynamics of stock returns, firm valuation, and desire to hire indicate that the market and companies did not expect deterioration of the targeted industries prior to, but made adjustments after the announcement of the Plans.
- SFS Cavalcade, Northeastern University Finance Conference, University of Connecticut Financial Risk Conference, Chapman University Money and Finance Conference, NFA (scheduled)
- Featured in AAII journal
- Featured in AAII journal
This study investigates how mobile trading technology affects retail investor behavior and mutual fund fragility using proprietary individual-level trading data around a natural experiment - the release of a mobile trading application by a large investment adviser. "Going mobile" raises investor attention and trading volume through aggravating over-confidence and self-control problems. The shock boosts flow volatility and increases investor flow sensitivity to short-term fund returns and market sentiment. Fund performance suffers due to heightened liquidity costs. The funds more exposed to the shock see a greater decline in abnormal returns, attributed to incremental fund flows through the application.
- Best paper award, Columbia Business School PhD Forum
Using an exogenous regulatory change that stimulated hedge fund entry in China and increased the competition for talent faced by a subset of mutual funds, this paper documents how intensified competition for talent from hedge funds affects mutual fund returns. The manager turnover rate increases by more than 50% in the affected mutual funds relative to the control group. The excess returns of mutual funds affected by the regulation decline substantially, and the performance deterioration is concentrated in the year after managerial turnovers. The evidence is consistent with the "brain drain" hypothesis. Overall, this paper shows the adverse effect of cross-industry competition on fund returns and highlights the importance of talent in the money management industry.
Work-in-Progress
“Corporate Social Responsibility and Labor Mobility”, with Yue Qiu and Tracy Wang
“Entrepreneurs or Debt Slaves? The Impact of Mortgage Liability on Entrepreneurship”
“Entrepreneurs or Debt Slaves? The Impact of Mortgage Liability on Entrepreneurship”