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Zhanbing Xiao

Postdoctoral Fellow

Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Harvard University, 2023 - 

Ph.D. in Finance, UBC, 2023

CV

Email: zhanbingxiao@fas.harvard.edu

Google Scholar

SSRN

LinkedIn

Twitter: @zhanbingxiao

Research Interests:  
Primary: Climate Finance
Secondary: 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:

Joseph Aldy

Hernan Ortiz-Molina

Kai Li

Xin Zheng

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.

Selected Conference Presentations: NBER Place-Based Policies and Entrepreneurship 2024, 4th Spring Finance Workshop 

Adaptation to Climate-induced Regulatory Risk: A Labor Perspective, with Hernan Ortiz-Molina and Xin Zheng, new draft soon

Heat-exposed plants adapt their production processes by integrating IT-related automation to reduce labor costs  after the implementation of the Heat Illness Prevention Standard in CA and WA (Fig).

 

Selected Conference Presentations: AEA 2025, Finance Down Under Conference 2025, Hawaii Accounting Research Conference 2025, FMA 2024, 20th Annual Haskell and White Conference

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

The Economic and Financial Impact of Negative Environmental and Social Practices: Evidence from Consumer Store Visits 

(Slides), 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 Designwith Yongqiang Chu and Luca Lin

Journal of Financial Intermediation, Jan 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 CaoJason 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

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