Research

The Positive Effect of Employee Pay on Executive Pay
(earlier circulated under the title "Do Top Executives Benefit from Employee Pay Raises? Evidence from a Federal Minimum Wage Law")

Job Market Paper

Most recent draft (September 2025): download here
Featured in the FinReg Blog sponsored by the Duke Financial Economics Center
Presented at: AFFECT Mentoring Workshop (2025), AFA Meeting (2024); FMA Meeting (2023); Indiana University (2023); University of Denver (2023); CSU San Bernardino (2022); Rowan University (2022); Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Finance Group (2022); Cornell University (2022)
Available at SSRN

Abstract: Top executive pay at U.S. public firms increases by 2.3% when employee pay increases due to the 41% federal minimum wage hike in 2007. Exploiting establishment-level data, my main difference-in-differences design compares firms with larger shares of employees in states bound by the federal minimum wage (“treated”) to firms with smaller shares (“control”) over time. I find that the effect is more pronounced in minimum-wage-sensitive industries (i.e., leisure and retail) and in firms that are smaller or face a high probability of distress, consistent with executives being compensated for increased distress risk after the hike.

What Drives Racial Diversity on U.S. Corporate Boards?, with Vicki Bogan and Scott Yonker

(under review)

Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
Presented at: Cornell University* (2023), Depaul University* (2023), University of Colorado - Boulder* (2023), Duke University* (2022), NBER Race and Stratification Working Group Meeting* (2022), Tulane University* (2022), Ohio State University* (2021), University of Delaware* (2021), University of Mannheim* (2021) (*Presented by co-author)
Available at SSRN

Abstract: Using a decade of data, we analyze U.S. board appointment patterns and document racial disparities. From 2013 through 2019, the share of new directorships held by underrepresented minorities was significantly below their representation in the managerial workforce. From 2020 through 2022, shifts in appointment patterns coincided with the acceleration of the racial justice movement, the California board diversity statute, and the Nasdaq board diversity rule. Black director appointments rose 185% after George Floyd’s murder, and the California and Nasdaq requirements increased appointments of minorities not traditionally underrepresented. Overall, these patterns are consistent with search frictions, inattention, and racial bias.

Joint Dynamics of Board and Capital Structures, with Hyunseob Kim

Abstract: coming soon

Elections Have Consequences: Presidential Battleground States and the Geography of Corporate Investment, with Isaac Green

Abstract: Using a regression discontinuity framework combined with a borders-based identification approach, we examine whether federal grant and procurement spending are directed toward closely-contested presidential ”battleground” states, and whether these spending patterns have real effects on the location of corporate activity. Using a dataset of government procurement and grant contracts from 2000-2020, a period that covers six presidential election cycles, we find that counties in located in battleground states receive more federal funds in the years that follow a closely-contested election. We test whether this effect leads firms in government-dependent industries to locate operations in states thought to be crucial in presidential elections.

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