Publications

• Generative AI and Asset Management (with Jinfei Sheng, Zheng Sun, and Baozhong Yang), forthcoming, Review of Financial Studies.

  • We propose a novel measure of the reliance on generative AI of investment companies. Hedge fund companies adopting generative AI produce higher returns than nonadopters. Such skills are concentrated in large, more active funds, and are absent for non-hedge-fund companies, suggesting potential disparity in the benefits of AI. We conduct a survey to validate our measure and provide new insights.
     

• How to Talk When a Machine is Listening: Corporate Disclosure in the Age of AI (with Sean Cao, Wei Jiang, and Baozhong Yang), 2023, Review of Financial Studies.

  • Managers reshape the style and sentiment of their disclosure, and their voice emotion in response to the increasing machine and AI readership. This is the first study exploring the feedback effect on corporate disclosure in response to technology.
  • Michael J. Brennan Best Paper Award at RFS
  • Featured on NBER Digest Lead Article, Bloomberg, Financial Times, CNBC, Guardian
     

• Copycat Skills and Disclosure Costs: Evidence from Peer Companies’ Digital Footprints (with Sean Cao, Kai Du, and Baozhong Yang), 2021, Journal of Accounting Research.

  • Digital footprints allow the identification of copycat investment firms and their targets. Copycat investment firms are selective in their imitation of peer firms' trading strategies, generating profits and imposing costs on disclosing companies.

Working Papers

• Managerial Risk Assessment and Fund Performance: Evidence from Textual Disclosure (with Sean Cao and Baozhong Yang), revise & resubmit, Management Science.

  • We use natural language processing (NLP) tools to extract mutual fund managers' risk assessment from their narrative discussions, which predicts their future risk-taking and fund performance.
  • Featured on Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog
  • Presentations: MIT Asia Conference in Accounting, CICF, Global AI Finance Research Conference, MFA
     

• Beyond the Lines: Uncovering Private Information from Fund Managers' Narratives (with Sean Cao and Baozhong Yang), revise & resubmit, The Accounting Review.

  • Mutual fund managers disclose material narrative information to fund shareholders, which can be captured by large language model (LLM) and helps identify skilled fund managers.
  • Presentations: Conference on Financial Innovation at Stevens Business School, Winter Conference on Machine Learning and Business at University of Miami, Latest Advances in NLP at TUM, MFA
     

• The Economics of Greenwashing Funds (with Sean Cao, Yong Chen, and Han Xiao).

  • We identify greenwashing funds by analyzing their green disclosures using large language models (LLMs) alongside their actual green investments. These funds charge higher expenses, attract greater flows, and experience lower investor sensitivity to poor performance. However, they face regulatory costs imposed by the SEC, which ultimately result in net fund outflows
  • MRS Rosenberg Institute Research Excellence Award
  • Covered by Remarks of SEC Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda
  • Presentations: 12th Annual Conference on Financial Market Regulation, Future of Financial Information Conference, Lapland Financial Institutions Summit, CICF
     

• Are Unpredictable Analysts More Informative? Forecast Error Predictability as an Analyst Characteristic (with Vidhi Chhaochharia, Alok Kumar, and Ville Rantala).

  • We use machine learning to measure how predictable an analyst’s forecast errors are and show that unpredictability signals higher forecast quality. Unpredictable analysts are more accurate, responsive to business cycles, and less prone to strategic behavior.
  • Presentations: 12th Miami Behavioral Finance Conference, Machine Learning in Finance Conference at University of Florida, FIRS, CICF, Global AI Finance Research Conference
     

• Riding on the FinTech Wave: Disruption and Value Creation in Corporate Takeovers (with Xiaoyu Wang).

  • FinTech firms become increasingly attractive targets in corporate takeover markets. FinTech deals improve value creation to combine firms and generate spillover effects to peer firms.
  • Featured on Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog
  • Presentations: Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, China Fintech Research Conference