Securing Technological Leadership? The Cost of Export Controls on Firms
Co-authors: Lina Han, Marco Macchiavelli, André Silva, April 2025
EFA 2025 · CEPR & Kiel Institute Geonomics Conference 2023 · Bocconi Geonomics Workshop 2024 · GCAP Annual Conference (Columbia) 2024
Paper · Liberty Street · BibTeX
FT · Bloomberg · NYT · CFR · CSIS · McKinsey · Barron’s · Marginal Revolution

Abstract: To safeguard its technological leadership, the U.S. has restricted domestic suppliers from exporting specific cutting-edge technologies to selected Chinese firms. Domestic firms affected by these export controls halt sales to Chinese customers, as intended, but struggle to establish new relations with alternative customers domestically or in politically aligned regions. As a result, domestic suppliers experience a $130 billion decline in market capitalization, along with reductions in profitability, employment, and bank lending. We also show how Chinese firms strategically respond to export controls. Overall, export controls impose significant costs on domestic firms producing the very technologies these policies intend to protect.

Extend-and-Pretend in the U.S. CRE Market
Co-author: Saketh Prazad, October 2024
Paper · BibTeX
FT [1][2][3] · Bloomberg [Odd Lots] [Business Week] · CoStar · Reuters
SFS Cavalcade 2025 · NBER Financial Market Risks 2025 · FIRS 2025 · Mitsui Symposium 2025

Abstract: We show that banks “extended-and-pretended” their impaired CRE mortgages in the post-pandemic period to avoid writing off their capital, leading to credit misallocation and a buildup of financial fragility. We detect this behavior using loan-level supervisory data on maturity extensions, bank assessment of credit risk, and realized defaults for loans to property owners and REITs. Extend-and-pretend crowds out new credit provision, leading to a 4.8–5.3% drop in CRE mortgage origination since 2022:Q1 and fuels the amount of CRE mortgages maturing in the near term. As of 2023:Q4, this “maturity wall” represents 27% of bank capital.

Stakeholders’ Aversion to Inequality and Bank Lending to Minorities
Co-author: Hanh Le, November 2023
AFA 2025 · 2024 Santiago Finance Workshop · 2024 UNC Solutions for Reducing Wealth Inequality
Paper · BibTeX · Liberty Street

Abstract: We find that banks differ in their propensity to lend to minorities based on their stakeholders’ aversion to inequality. Using mortgage application data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, we document a large and persistent cross-sectional variation in banks’ propensity to lend to minorities. Inequality-averse banks have a higher propensity to lend to borrowers in high-minority areas and, within census tracts, to non-white borrowers compared to other banks. This higher propensity (i) is not explained by selection of applicants, (ii) allows these banks to retain and attract their inequality-averse stakeholders, and (iii) does not predict worse ex-post loan performance.

How do supply shocks to inflation generalize? Evidence from the pandemic era in Europe
Co-authors: Viral Acharya, Tim Eisert, Christian Eufinger, April 2025
EFA 2024 · WFA 2024 · 2024 Yale Supply Chain Workshop · 2023 CEPR Paris Symposium
Paper · BibTeX · FT · VoxEU

Abstract: We document how the interaction of supply chain pressures, elevated household inflation expectations, and firm pricing power contributed to the pandemic-era surge in consumer price inflation in the euro area. Initially, supply chain disruptions raised inflation, particularly in manufacturing sectors through a cost-push channel, while also elevating inflation expectations. In turn, higher inflation expectations appear to have lowered the price elasticity of consumer demand and strengthened firms’ pricing power, enabling even firms in service sectors, that were initially unaffected by supply constraints, to raise markups. Through this mechanism, localized inflation in sectors sensitive to supply-side shocks generalized into broad-based inflation.

Understanding the Pricing of Carbon Emissions: New Evidence from the Stock Market
Co-authors: Emilio Osambela, Matthew Pritsker, August 2024
EFA 2025 · NBER SI EFEL 2025
Paper · BibTeX

Abstract: Are carbon emissions priced in equity markets? The literature is split, but most research finds carbon emissions intensity, a measure targeted by ESG investors, is not priced. We show that: (i) most existing empirical tests suffer from measurement error and omitted variable bias, and (ii) if emissions intensity is priced, stock returns depend on expected emissions intensity and the product of the innovation in emissions intensity and the price-dividend ratio. Based on these new predictions, our empirical results confirm emissions intensity is priced, but the magnitude is largely driven by a few industries characterized by the presence of “super emitters.”