Research

Working Papers

"Managers' Diversity Experiences and Workforce D&I" 

(Job Market Paper)

Abstract: Diversity and inclusion (D&I) has become a central focus for workers, organizations, and policymakers. Yet, little is known about what drives the significant variation in D&I across- and within-firms over time. This paper highlights the role of managers' diversity experiences, during formative years, in shaping their D&I attitudes. Companies tend to adopt more D&I policies and have a greater representation of minorities and women in the workforce when the CEO had a high early-life diversity exposure. Supporting a more causal interpretation, the diversity exposure effects depend on the level of integration in the CEO's community while growing up, and the CEO's control over firm policies. Moreover, using a difference-in differences specification around plausibly exogenous CEO turnovers, to address the endogenous matching of CEOs to firms, provides consistent results.

Presentations:  American Finance Association (2025) (scheduled), Financial Management Association (2024) (scheduled)

"For Better or Worse? The Economic Implications of Paid Sick Leave Mandates" (with Paige Ouimet)

(Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Financial Economics)

Abstract: Public calls for a national paid sick leave policy continue to mount in the United States. Using the staggered adoption of local and state mandates, we document an average increase of 1.5% in employment following the enactment of a paid sick leave policy. As predicted, workers with ex ante lower access to paid sick leave drive the employment effect. Several mechanisms can explain our findings. Paid sick leave mandates are associated with a decline in labor turnover, an increase in the labor supply, and an increase in household income, which creates positive spillover effects on local markets. Moreover, firms exposed to the mandate experience a significant increase in operating profit – benefits firms may not be able to achieve through voluntary actions, in the absence of a mandate, due to adverse selection.

Presentations: American Finance Association (2023), Midwest Finance Association (2023), Labor and Finance Group* (2022).

*: presented by co-author

Coverage: Kenan Institute,  FinReg Blog, WRAL, National Affairs

"CEOs' Rise to Power: Does Luck Matter?" 

Abstract: The optimal view of managerial power theory suggests that boards reward CEOs with power for good firm performance. However, firm performance can be decomposed into CEO skill and luck. Economic theory predicts that, in evaluating the CEO’s ability, boards filter out luck from performance. Contrary to the prediction, I find that luck significantly increases the power of CEOs, whereas skill has a limited effect. I explore four channels that could explain why power for luck arises: market timing, luck increasing CEOs' outside options, substitution effects between power and pay, and inability of boards to filter out luck.

Coverage: Institutional Investor, FinReg Blog

Work In Progress

"Distributional Effects of Adverse Economic Shocks Through Firm Production Networks" (with Franklin Qian)