Research

My research interests primarily focus on understanding the incentives and consequences of voluntary managerial disclosures, especially during conference calls. I am also interested in how information intermediaries such as financial analysts shape the firms’ information environments as well as how the boards of directors and shareholders influence and potentially discipline managerial disclosure behavior. 

Job Market Paper

[1] “Shareholder Votes and Executive Strategic Disclosures: Evidence from Say-on-Pay” (solo-authored)

• Dissertation Committee: Xiao-Jun Zhang (Co-chair), Omri Even-Tov (Co-chair), Ulrike Malmendier, Panos Patatoukas,
• Presented at: 2026 AAA FARS Mid-year Meeting, Santa Clara University, University of Hawaii Manoa, Lehigh University, Fairfield University, Boise State University, Boston University, Indiana University Bloomington, Emerging Researchers Consortium in Accounting at Naples, AAA/Deloitte Foundation/J. Michael Cook Doctoral Consortium, UC Berkeley Finance Lunch Seminar, UC Berkeley Accounting Seminar
• Abstract: This study examines how shareholder votes influence executive disclosures, leveraging the mandatory adoption of Say-on-Pay (SoP) in the United States, which requires regular shareholder votes on executive compensation. My identification strategy relies on a difference-in-differences design that exploits intra-firm variations in SoP exposure among executives participating in earnings conference calls. I find that executives subject to SoP provide abnormally optimistic disclosures to potentially influence shareholders’ perceptions of their performance and voting decisions. This tone inflation is associated with more favorable SoP voting results but subsequent declines in firm value, suggesting it is strategic. Further analysis indicates that the documented tone inflation is driven by executives’ heightened career concerns and compensation more closely tied to stock performance after SoP adoption. Strong internal and external monitoring partially mitigates the executives’ strategic tone inflation. Overall, the findings highlight the unintended consequences of shareholder votes on managers’ strategic disclosure incentives.

Other Working Papers

[2] “Measuring Analyst Question Quality in Conference Calls: A Machine Learning Approach” (with Ari Yezegel and Xiao-Jun Zhang)

• Revise and resubmit at Journal of Accounting and Economics
• Presented at: Carnegie Mellon University*, Bentley University*
• Abstract: We develop a novel machine learning-based measure of analyst question quality derived from the questions analysts ask during earnings calls and the intraday market reactions they elicit. We validate this measure by demonstrating that it predicts information-rich responses by management, larger post-call forecast revisions by analysts, and stronger intraday market reactions by investors. Using this measure, we find that question quality increases when macroeconomic uncertainty rises. This relation is stronger for analysts with greater expertise and institutional resources, weaker for overloaded analysts, and amplified when firms reduce voluntary disclosure. Importantly, the forecast accuracy gains from higher-quality questions nearly double when moving from low- to high-uncertainty environments. Our findings suggest that information acquisition in capital markets is dynamic: analysts function as a stabilizing informational force when uncertainty rises.

[3] “Silence After the Call: Strategic Withholding of Earnings Call Materials on Corporate Websites” (with Wilbur Chen, Omri Even-Tov, and Ziqing Tian)

• Presented at: HKUST*, UC Berkeley Brownbag
• Abstract: We examine whether firms strategically manage their website disclosures by hand-collecting a novel dataset on the availability of the earnings call materials (slides, transcripts, and audio recordings) posted on corporate websites after conference calls. We document intermittent disclosure gaps and show that gaps in audio recordings, but not in slides or transcripts, are systematically related to strategic disclosures. Audio gaps are more likely to occur following adverse performance and among firms audited by non–Big 4 auditors, and they predict a substantially higher likelihood of future financial restatements and shareholder class-action lawsuits. The predictive relation is stronger for firms with weaker corporate governance and higher information asymmetry. Despite their strong predictive power, audio gaps elicit little market reaction, suggesting that investors largely fail to recognize the informational content of these omissions. Overall, our findings highlight an underexplored yet economically meaningful channel through which firms manage their website disclosures.

[4] “Credit Sentiments in Conference Calls and Bond Market Returns” (solo-authored)

• Presented at: 2024 AAA FARS Mid-year Meeting (Research Roundtable), 2023 AAA Annual Meeting, UC Berkeley Accounting Seminar
• Abstract: I examine whether and how bond market returns are affected by credit sentiments in conference calls, which refer to the tone of management and analysts when they discuss credit-related topics. I first show that more positive credit sentiments in conference calls are associated with more positive credit rating changes as well as lower CDS spreads and cost of debt in the future. Consistent with the asymmetric bond price responses to earnings news in the literature, I document a positive relation between credit sentiments and bond returns around earnings announcements mainly for firms with negative earnings news. I also document a significant relationship between credit sentiments and future bond returns, suggesting that bond investors underreact to credit sentiment information. Cross-sectional analysis shows that management credit sentiments are more informative for firms with more debt or worse credit ratings, but its informativeness is substantially reduced when the macro credit environment is extremely negative. Analyst credit sentiments are more informative for firms with recent issuance of new bonds or credit rating downgrades when management might have incentives to inflate their credit sentiments.

* Presented by coauthors