1. Are Banks and Private Credit Complements or Substitutes? - Job Market Paper
Draft coming soon
2. Resource Curse or Fiscal Gains? Effects of Shale Booms on Municipal Finance - with Alex Butler and Derrick Liang
Presentations. Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (2025), Rice University (2025), Eastern Finance Association (2026)*
Abstract. Do large resource windfalls improve or distort economic outcomes? We study shale booms from technological advances in hydraulic fracturing as a quasi-natural experiment for sudden revenue shocks. Using municipal bond markets as a forward-looking measure of fiscal conditions and investors’ expectations of equilibrium effects, we find that exposed municipalities experience lower borrowing costs, improved creditworthiness, and reduced reliance on debt and intergovernmental transfers. These gains are driven by higher tax revenues but partially offset by increased spending and negative externalities. Weak-governance municipalities exhibit deteriorating credit outcomes, consistent with resource curse mechanism in which large influx of resources induce wasteful spending and inefficient allocation of resources.
3. Creditor Rights, Debtholder Conflicts, and Fragile Borrowers - Ph.D. Third-Year Paper
Best Paper Award semifinalist at FMA Annual Meeting 2025
Presentations. Financial Management Association (2025), Eastern Finance Association (2025), Southern Finance Association (2025), Rice University (2024)
Abstract. I show that laws protecting creditor rights can generate unintended economic costs, using data on firms’ use of off-balance sheet subsidiaries derived from 10-K text analysis and the staggered rollout of state-level provisions that strengthen repossession rights for creditors within these subsidiaries. Facing lower expected recovery and diminished bargaining power, bank lenders and bondholders of parent firms reprice this risk through higher loan spreads, tighter covenant protection, increased underwriting fees, and worse credit ratings. These shifts in the claims hierarchy and credit terms tighten financing conditions and raise entry barriers for young and small firms that rely on debt financing.
4. Place-Based Distress and Access to Healthcare - with Cyrus Aghamolla and David Zhang
Draft coming soon
* denotes presentation presented by co-author