Finance PhD Candidate
Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder
Email: [email protected]
Research Interest: Empirical Corporate Finance, Labor Finance, Innovation, Textual Analysis, News Media
Teaching Interest: Investment, Portfolio Management, Corporate Finance, Derivatives, Textual Analysis in Finance
New Neighbor, New Opportunities: The Impact of Neighborhood-Level Inventor Interactions
Presented at: CU Boulder Finance Brownbag (2024)
This study explores how neighborhood-level social interactions among inventors shape individual productivity, research direction, and career moves. Using a comprehensive dataset of inventor move-in events in California from 1997—2019 and a spatial difference-in-differences design that compares incumbent inventor residents located near versus far from the entrant, I find that the arrival of new inventor neighbor increases incumbents’ subsequent patenting. This effect is stronger when the entering inventor is active and productive and when local social capital is higher. Entrants also reshape incumbents’ research trajectories. Technological similarity increases the propensity to stay in the current field, whereas dissimilarity increases the propensity to enter new fields. Word-embedding analyses of patent text show that dissimilar pairs tilt toward the entrant’s technology space, consistent with learning. At the career margin, treated inventors reallocate more effort toward other industries. These findings underscore the role of local inventor interactions in shaping the innovation ecosystem and provide micro-evidence on the mechanisms of knowledge spillovers and agglomeration.
Do Stock Repurchases Cause Harm? Evidence from Financially Distressed Firms, with David Ikenberry and Theo Vermaelen
Presented at: FMA(2024), WFC(2024), EFMA(2024), INSEAD Finance Brownbag (2024), CU Boulder Finance Brownbag (2024), Rice University(2025), University of North Texas(2025), Penn State(2025), Spring 2025 External Seminar Series Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission*. (co-author presented)
Media coverage: Morgan Stanley Investment Management - Which One Is It? Equity Issuance and Retirement
Critics offer numerous reasons for how buybacks cause harm. Crimping investment and innovation; perverting capital structures; and impairing employment are a few of the claims prompting U.S. legislators to impose restrictions on the transaction. Prior research finds that on average, buybacks are beneficial to equity holders, both in the short run and the long run, yet these studies often overlook other stakeholders. More importantly, by focusing on the average financially healthy firms these tests are weak when searching for potential harm. One notable exception: Chen and Wang (2012) find that buybacks made by financially constrained firms are followed by negative long-term abnormal returns and explain this by managerial overconfidence. In this paper we focus on the consequences of buybacks in another subsample: financially distressed firms. As in the case of financially constrained firms, repurchasing shares when you appear to be financially distressed seems like another example where buybacks could cause harm. However, we find no evidence of underinvestment, diminished innovation, or adverse effects on any stakeholder, including shareholders. Indeed, shareholders experience positive long-term excess returns, suggesting that when markets overestimate financial distress it creates an opportunity to buy back undervalued stock. Our findings provide no motivation for regulatory intervention.