Research

Published Paper

Huang, R., Shi, Y., Li, D., Wang, S., & Jia, Z. (2024). Religious atmosphere, seismic impact, and corporate charitable donations in China. Energy Economics, 131,107369. DOI

Jia, Z., Li, D., Shi, Y. and Xing, L. (2023). Firm-Level Media Coverage, Bank Loans, and the Role of Institutional Environments. Journal of Corporate Finance, 83,102491. DOI

Yang, G., Huang, R., Shi, Y. and Jia, Z. (2021). Does a CEO’s Private Reputation Impede Corporate Governance?. Economic Modelling, 104, 105640. DOI

Jia, Z., Shi, Y., Yan, C. and Duygun, M. (2020). Bankruptcy Prediction with Financial Systemic Risk. European Journal of Finance, 26(7-8), 666-690. DOI

Working Paper

1. Credit Market Segmentation, Access to Credit, and Corporate Risk-taking: Evidence from Asset-backed Securitisation (with Yukun Shi and Yeqing Zeng)

• Presented at the Conference on Financial Technology and Finance Development in China 2019 (CUFE, Beijing, China), University of Glasgow and University of Plymouth. Formerly titled "Does Asset-backed Securitisation Affect Corporate Risk-taking?"

This study examines the impact of Asset-backed Securitisation (ABS) on corporate risk-taking. Addressing concerns of self-selection bias and endogeneity, we find that the use of ABS is positively associated with corporate risk-taking. Borrowing more through ABS economically and significantly increases corporate risk-taking incentives, through increasing access to credit markets. Employing hand-collected ABS data from 10-K filings in the EDGAR database, we document that firms with greater ABS borrowing capacity and less consumption of credit gain from ABS are more inclined towards risk-taking post-ABS. Further analysis indicates that ABS has a systematic yet varied effect on corporate risk-taking across different firms. These results align with theoretical views that low costs of capital, high asset liquidity and good investment opportunities are associated with more corporate risk-taking behaviour. We establish a connection between credit market segmentation and access to credit markets with corporate risk-taking tendencies, and our findings highlight the relationship between corporate financing and investment decisions.

2. Can Securitisation Prompt Public Firms’ Innovation? (with Thomas Chemmanur and Yukun Shi)

• This paper is funded by Wards Funds, University of Glasgow. 

Using hand-collected data from 10-K filings, we analyse the relation between asset-backed securitisation and corporate innovation inputs and outputs. We find that securitisation is efficient for spurring public firms' innovation after carefully considering endogeneity issues. Further tests show that securitisation is associated with more exploitative innovation. We support the hypothesis that the effect of securitisation is through the risk-taking channel rather than releasing the financial constraint channel.

3. Institutional Shareholders’ Temporary Distraction: Acute Pain or Chronic Pain? Evidence from Bank Loans (with Jinhong Hu, Yukun Shi and Dan Zhou)

• Presented at the IFABS 2022 Naples Conference, FMA 2023 European Conference, Queen’s University of Belfast and University of Glasgow. 

This paper examines the effect of distraction among institutional investors on various features of the loan contract. We use an exogenous measure to capture institutional investor distraction (Kempf et al. 2017). Using a facility-level sample from 1985 to 2017 of US non-financial borrowers, we find a positive relationship between the distraction and the cost of bank loans. Distraction also increases the concerns of risk elements in a loan’s contract. The effects of institutional distractions are associated with the characteristics of institutional investors, the investors’ holdings proportions and the borrower’s ex-ante credit condition. Further tests show that the increase in loan spread is due to weakened monitoring and governance efforts from institutional investors when they are distracted. Overall, this study contributes to the literature that investors show limited attention to corporate actions and our evidence supports the governance role of institutional shareholders.