with C. Custodio and D. Cvijanovic
Accepted, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
We study the impact of opioid abuse on real estate prices. We document that opioid death rates and excess prescription rates are negatively associated with house prices. Exploiting the staggered passage of opioid-limiting legislation, we find that a decrease in opioid abuse results in higher county-level house prices. This effect is due to fewer mortgage delinquencies, lower vacancy rates, more home improvement loans, and increased population inflow. Our findings are consistent with improved real estate conditions and a rise in local demand. These results highlight the importance of public health policy in mitigating the economic costs of the opioid epidemic.
Media: IBKnowledge
This paper examines whether responsible institutional investors affect firms' green capital expenditures. I identify responsible investors using the Climate Action 100+ initiative and measure firms' green capital expenditures with green debt issuance complemented with green patenting and greenhouse gas emissions. Exploiting regional differences in sustainability preferences, I use the cross-listing of European and Asian firms in the United States as a negative shock to responsible ownership. A staggered difference-in-differences design shows that cross-listing firms experience a decline in responsible ownership and subsequently reduce green efforts. Together, the evidence suggests that responsible investors influence corporate decarbonization by shaping firms' investment decisions.
Media: CFA Netherlands VBA Journal
with P. Bolton and M. Kacperczyk
We analyze green and brown R&D activity worldwide and its effects in reducing carbon emissions. Innovating companies with higher carbon emissions engage more in brown R&D and less in green R&D. Despite a steady rise in the share of green R&D, green innovation does not predict future reductions in carbon emissions of innovating firms, non-innovating firms in the same sector, firms in other sectors, and across countries, whether in the short term (one year after filing a green patent) or in the medium term (three or five years out). Rather, green innovation predicts higher indirect emissions in related industries.
Supplementary material: Patent Classification
with A. Lam and D. Licher
This paper examines how nature dependence translates into economic value in the context of biotech innovations. We identify biotech patents as those involving the application of science to living organisms, and document that biotech patenting activities span across industries. Our most conservative estimate indicates that biotech patents are $639,000 more valuable than other granted patents, which is also reflected in firm level valuation and cash flow metrics. Exploiting a shock to the recognition of extinction risk of species in a patent, we show that constrained firms have lower valuation, cash flows, and capital expenditures. Overall, our results suggest that while nature dependence via biotechnology is valuable, the recognition of extinction risk can have significant implications for firm value.
with D. Cvijanovic and A. Wu
We investigate the relationship between childhood mental health conditions and financial outcomes later in life. We find that individuals with childhood mental health conditions are significantly less likely to hold any assets, accumulate fewer total assets both unconditionally and conditionally on asset ownership, and are less likely to be homeowners over the life cycle. They also tend to accumulate more debt, and in particular more non-mortgage debt. These results are largely driven by white and male demographic groups. Financial literacy mitigates most of these effects. Childhood mental health is also linked to a lower likelihood of overconfidence, shorter life span expectancy and financial planning horizons, more pessimistic economic outlook, and reduced cognitive abilities, all of which may jointly explain the observed differences in financial outcomes.
2025: Conference on the Economics and Finance of Healthcare and Medicine at WashU*, Workshop on Biodiversity and Finance at Imperial
2024: AFA, Adam Smith Sustainability Conference, GRASFI, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Symposium NOVA
2023: UBC Winter Finance Conference, SSE Harnessing Finance for Climate*, Carey Finance Conference PhD Session, Hoyt Institute*
2022: CEPR Advanced Forum for Financial Economics (CAFFE)*, UBC Sauder Business School*, University of Southern California*, Bocconi University*, Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics*, ECB Conference on Money Markets*
2021: AREUEA 2021 National Conference, MIT CRE Seminar Series*, Baruch College*, Ted Rodgers School of Business Management - Ryerson*
2020: UZH Young Researcher Workshop on Climate Finance, University of Reading*
2019: GRASFI PhD Workshop; University of Siegen Conference on Risk Governance and Sustainability
*: conference presentation by co-author