Zhanbing Xiao
Postdoctoral Fellow
The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability
Harvard University, 2023 -
Ph.D. in Finance, UBC, 2023
CV
Email: zhanbingxiao@fas.harvard.edu
Research Interests:
Primary area: Climate Finance
Secondary area: AI, Automation & Tech Progress
In both areas, my research primarily explores the implications for the labor market and environmental issues. I have also conducted work on financial intermediation.
References:
Links:
The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability
Harvard University Center for the Environment
Events:
I am co-organizing a workshop on corporate carbon commitments and emissions at Harvard Business School in Oct 2024.
Working Papers
How Does Climate Change Reshape U.S. Entrepreneurship? A Labor Channel (Slides)
Heat risks discourage entrepreneurship in exposed industries (Fig) (Fig), due to increased labor-related production and financing costs (Fig).
Existing firms expand their networks, but this doesn't offset the decline in new business formation.
This overall business decline contributes to a contraction in aggregate economic activity (Fig), suggesting insufficient adaptation efforts in the economy.
Adaptation to Climate-induced Regulatory Risk: A Labor Perspective, with Hernan Ortiz-Molina and Xin Zheng
Heat-exposed plants increase IT intensity after the implementation of the Heat Illness Prevention Standard in CA and WA (Fig).
Conference Presentations: AEA 2025; FMA 2024; 20th Annual Haskell and White Conference; Hawaii Accounting Research Conference 2025
FMA Best Paper Award Semifinalist 2024
Labor Exposure to Climate Risk, Productivity Loss, and Capital Deepening (Slides)
Significant heterogeneity in workers' heat exposure within and across sectors (Fig).
Extreme heat hurts the productivity of exposed workers (Fig). Dynamic treatment effects (Fig).
Firms respond by shifting toward more capital-intensive production functions (Fig), accompanied by increases in capital expenditures and R&D expenses, acquisition of robotics-related human capital, and development of automation-related technology.
Investors value the labor channel and firms' automation efforts.
Conference Presentations: SFS Cavalcade North America 2024, MFA 2024, Commodity and Energy Markets Association (CEMA) Annual Conference 2024 at Boston University, Swiss Society for Financial Market Research (SGF) Conference 2024 (cancelled), AFA 2023, FIRS 2023, AEA Poster Session 2023, Stanford Preparing for a Changing Climate Conference 2023, 15th Annual Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Ph.D. Workshop, NFA 2022, FMA 2022, FMA Doctoral Student Consortium 2022, LBS Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference (TADC) 2022, UBC Summer Conference 2022, 35th Australian Finance and Banking Conference, New Zealand Finance Meeting 2022, Liechtenstein Workshop of Sustainable Finance 2022, 6th Shanghai-Edinburgh-London Green Finance Conference, China International Risk Forum (CIRF), Financial Markets and Corporate Governance Conference 2022.
FIRS Ph.D. Student Award 2023; CIRF Ph.D. Student Research Excellence Award 2022; FMA Best Paper Award Semifinalist 2022
with Xin Zheng and Yuxiang Zheng
Revise & Resubmit, Review of Accounting Studies
The Industry Expertise Channel of Mortgage Lending (Slides), with Yongqiang Chu and Yuxiang Zheng
Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Balance Rights and Responsibilities in Liquidity Supply and Demand Contracts, with John Chu
Presentations: FMA European Conference 2022, 34th Australian Finance and Banking Conference
Publications
Agree to Disagree: Lender Equity Holdings, Within-syndicate Conflicts, and Covenant Design, with Yongqiang Chu and Luca Lin
Journal of Financial Intermediation, 2024
Selected Work-in-Progres
Decarbonization Through Technology Progress, with Hernan Ortiz-Molina and Xin Zheng
Preliminary Draft in Preparation
Funded by Insight Grants, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Corporate Net-Zero Carbon Targets, with Joseph Aldy, Jody Freeman, Carrie Jenks, George Serafeim, and Michael Toffel
Multiple projects, Funded by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability
Hedging Climate Risks, with Vaibhav Anand
Other Works
Smart Beta, "Smarter" Flows, with Jie Cao, Jason Hsu, Linjia Song, and Xintong Zhan, Pre-PhD work
Interest Rate Risk, Prepayment Risk and Banks’ Securitization of Mortgages, Resting
Selected Discussions
Picking Up the PACE: Loans for Residential Climate-Proofing, Aymeric Bellon, Cameron LaPoint, Francesco Mazzola, and Guosong Xu