Research

Research Areas

Corporate Governance, FinTech, Financial Institutions, Hedge Funds

Education

  • Ph.D. in Economics, Columbia University, New York, 2013
  • M.A. in Statistics, Columbia University, New York, 2008
  • M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design, Columbia University, New York, 2005
  • Bachelor of Architecture, Tongji University, Shanghai, 2004

Publications

“Investor Ideology,” with Patrick Bolton, Enrichetta Ravina, and Howard Rosenthal, Journal of Financial Economics 137(2), 320-352, August 2020.

“The Long Rise and Quick Fall of Appraisal Arbitrage,” with Wei Jiang and Randall Thomas, Boston University Law Review 100(6), 2133-2177, December 2020.

“Seeking Out Non-Public Information: Sell-Side Analysts and the Freedom of Information Act,” with April Klein and Bobo Zhang, The Accounting Review 95(1), 233-257, January 2020.

“Influencing Control: Jawboning in Risk Arbitrage,” with Wei Jiang and Danqing Mei, Journal of Finance 73(6), 2635-2675, December 2018.

  • Winner of the Best Paper Award at the 2015 FMA Consortium on Activist Investors, Corporate Governance and Hedge Funds
  • Finalist, 2016 Crowell Memorial Prize, PanAgora Asset Management

“Outsourcing Corporate Governance: Conflicts of Interest Within the Proxy Advisory Industry,” Management Science 64(6), 2951-2971, June 2018.

“Appraisal: Shareholder Remedy or Litigation Arbitrage?” with Wei Jiang, Danqing Mei, and Randall Thomas, Journal of Law and Economics 59(3), 697-729, August 2016.

“Activist M&A Arbitrage in Acquirers,” with Wei Jiang and Danqing Mei (2018), Finance Research Letters 29, 156-161, June 2019.

“The Value of Access to Rail Transit in a Congested City: Evidence from Housing Prices in Beijing,” Real Estate Economics 48(2), 556-598, Summer 2020.

Working Papers

“Glass Half Full or Half Empty? Activists, Short Sellers, and Disagreement,” with Pedro Saffi and Daheng Yang (2021).

“Municipal Finance During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” with Jing Lu (2020).

  • Presentations: Virtual Municipal Finance Workshop 2021, Midwest Finance Association

“Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes,” with Donghwa Shin and Baolian Wang (2019). Revise & Resubmit

“The Wisdom of Crowds in FinTech: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings,” with Jongsub Lee and Donghwa Shin (2019). Revise & Resubmit

  • Presentations: Princeton, ASSA, WFA, 18th FDIC Banking Research Conference, FIRS, Fintech, Social Finance, and Financial Stability (ADBI-CUHK-SFI), Florida Blockchain Think Tank
  • Winner of the NH Investment & Securities 2018 CAFM Conference Best Paper Award
  • Coverage: Digital Asset Research, Investopedia, Duke Law School FinReg Blog

“Picking Friends Before Picking (Proxy) Fights: How Mutual Fund Voting Shapes Proxy Contests,” with Alon Brav, Wei Jiang, and James Pinnington (2019), Columbia Business School Research Paper No. 18-16; ECGI Finance Working Paper No. 601/2019. Online Appendix

  • Winner of the 2020 Aberdeen Standard Investments Best Paper Prize (ECGI)
  • Presentations: NBER Corporate Finance Summer Institute, AFA, 10th Annual Hedge Fund Research Conference, FTSE World Investment Forum, UVA/ICI Symposium on Mutual Funds and ETFs, Columbia Law School, Columbia Business School
  • Coverage: Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

“The Benefits of Friendship in Hedge Fund Activism,” with Ellen He (2019). Revise & Resubmit

  • Presentations: 4th Conference on Recent Advances in Mutual and Hedge Fund Research (Humboldt & ESMT), EFA, 9th Annual Hedge Fund Research Conference, CEPR Annual Spring Symposium in Financial Economics (Imperial College), Consortium on Institutional Investing and Hedge Funds (Cambridge University), The Role of Hedge Funds and other Collective Investments in the Modern World (Manchester), FMA, FMA Europe
  • Coverage: Seeking Alpha

“Acquiring and Trading on Complex Information: How Hedge Funds Use the Freedom of Information Act,” with April Klein (2015). This paper was previously circulated under the title “Costs and Benefits of Acquiring Information: How Hedge Fund Managers Trade on the Freedom of Information Act.”

  • Presentations: EFA, American Law & Economics Association, Annual Hedge Fund Research Conference (Paris), EFMA, FMA
  • Winner of the 2015 EFMA Conference Best Paper Award
  • Semi-finalist for the 2015 FMA Conference Best Paper Award
  • Coverage: Barclay’s Insider Report

Fellowships and Honors

  • Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence on the MBA Program, Warwick Business School, 2015.
  • The 2020 Aberdeen Standard Investments Finance Prize (ECGI Working Paper series): “Picking Friends Before Picking (Proxy) Fights: How Mutual Fund Voting Shapes Proxy Contests.”
  • The 2019 Aberdeen Standard Investments Finance Prize (ECGI Working Paper series): “Investor Ideology.” 
  • INQUIRE Europe Award (€10,000), “Power Grab: Activists, Short Sellers, and Disagreement,” 2018.
  • Best Paper Award, 2015 European Financial Management Association (EFMA): “Costs and Benefits of Acquiring Information: How Hedge Fund Managers Trade on the Freedom of Information Act.”
  • Best Paper Award, 2015 Consortium on Activist Investors, Corporate Governance and Hedge Funds: “Influencing Control: Jawboning in Risk Arbitrage.”
  • Finalist, 2016 Crowell Memorial Prize, PanAgora Asset Management: “Influencing Control: Jawboning in Risk Arbitrage.”
  • William Kinne Fellows Memorial Traveling Prize, Columbia University, 2005.

Other Publications

Book Review

Merger Masters: Tales of Arbitrage (2018) by Kate Welling and Mario Gabelli (GAMCO Investors, Inc.)

Selected Media Citations