Published Papers
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"Can Innovation Help U.S. Manufacturing Firms Escape Import Competition from China?", joint with Johan Hombert, Journal of Finance, Volume 73, Issue 5, October 2018, Pages 2003-2039We study whether R&D-intensive firms are more resilient to trade shocks. We correct for the endogeneity of R&D using tax-induced changes to R&D cost. While rising imports from China lead to slower sales growth and lower profitability, these effects are significantly smaller for firms with a larger stock of R&D (by about half when moving from the bottom quartile to the top quartile of R&D). We provide evidence that this effect is explained R&D allowing firms to increase product differentiation. As a result, while firms in import-competing industries cut capital expenditures and employment, R&D-intensive firms downsize considerably less.
Online appendix Vox column |
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"The Real Effects of Lending Relationships on Innovative Firms and Inventor Mobility", joint with Johan Hombert, Review of Financial Studies, Volume 30, Issue 7, 1 July 2017, Pages 2413–2445
We study whether relationship lending is conducive to the financing of innovation. Exploiting a negative shock to relationships, we show that it reduces the number of innovative firms, especially those that depend more on relationship lending such as small, young, and opaque firms. This credit supply shock leads to reallocation of inventors whereby young and promising inventors leave small firms and move out of geographical areas where lending relationships are hurt. Overall, our results suggest that credit markets affect both the level of innovation activity and the distribution of innovative human capital across the economy. Vox column |
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"Do Managers Overreact to Salient Risks? Evidence from Hurricane Strikes", joint with Olivier Dessaint, Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 126, Issue 1, October 2017, Pages 97-121
We study how managers respond to the occurrence of a hurricane event when their firms are located in the neighborhood of the disaster area. We find that the sudden shock to the perceived liquidity risk leads managers to increase the amount of corporate cash holdings and to express more concerns about hurricane risk in 10-Ks/10-Qs, even though the real risk remains unchanged. Both effects are temporary. Over time, the perceived risk decreases, and the bias disappears. The documented distortion between subjective and objective risk is large. Overall, managerial reaction to salient risks is consistent with salience theories of choice. |
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"Noisy Stock Prices and Corporate Investment", joint with Olivier Dessaint, Thierry Foucault and Laurent Frésard, forthcoming, Review of Financial Studies Firms significantly reduce their investment in response to non-fundamental drops in the stock price of their product-market peers. We argue that this result arises because of managers' limited ability to filter out the noise in stock prices when using them as signals about their investment opportunities. The resulting losses of capital investment and shareholders' wealth are economically large, and affect even firms that are not facing severe financing constraints or agency problems. Our findings offer a novel perspective on how stock market inefficiencies can affect the real economy, even in the absence of financing or agency frictions. Vox Column |
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"Bank-Branch Supply, Financial Inclusion and Wealth Accumulation", joint with Claire Célerier, forthcoming Review of Financial Studies
This paper studies the impact of .financial inclusion on wealth accumulation. Exploiting the US interstate branching deregulation between 1994 and 2005, we .find that an exogenous expansion of the supply of bank branches increases low-income household .financial inclusion. We then show that .financial inclusion fosters household wealth accumulation. We identify that banked households not only accumulate assets in interest bearing accounts, but also invest more in durable assets such as vehicles, have a better access to debt relative to their unbanked counterparts, and have a lower probability of facing financial strain. The results suggest that promoting .financial inclusion for low-income populations can improve household wealth accumulation and financial security. Vox Column |
