I am an Associate Professor of Finance at HEC Paris. My areas of research are financial intermediation and corporate finance. Please download my CV.
Finance Department
HEC Paris
78350 Jouy-en-Josas
France
Phone: (++33) 139 67 7119.
E-Mail: efing(at)hec(dot)fr
My affiliations and profiles:
google.scholar
IDEAS – RePEc
SSRN
CEPR affiliate
CESifo affiliate
ACPR Chair on Regulation and Systemic Risk (Banque de France)
Risk Managers in Banks
The Review of Financial Studies, accepted for publication, with Patrick Kampkötter and Vincent Maurin.
Freeze! Financial Sanctions and Bank Responses
The Review of Financial Studies, 36, 2023, 4417-4459 with Stefan Goldbach and Volker Nitsch. (SFS Cavalcade Award 2019 for the Best Paper in CF)
How Do Investors and Firms React to an Unexpected Currency Appreciation Shock?
The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, 12, 2023, 488-538, with Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, Christoph Herpfer, and Philipp Krüger.
Bank Bonus Pay as a Risk Sharing Contract
The Review of Financial Studies, 36, 2023, 235-280, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter, and Jean-Charles Rochet. (Best Paper Award at Paris December Finance Meeting 2019)
Reaching for Yield in the ABS Market: Evidence from German Bank Investments (Internet Appendix)
Review of Finance, 24, 2020, 929-959. (Joint winner of the ESRB Research Prize in Memory of Ieke van den Burg 2016, finalist to the IQAM Award 2021 of the Review of Finance, Swiss Finance Institute best paper doctoral award 2015)
Shareholder Bargaining Power and the Emergence of Empty Creditors (Internet Appendix)
Journal of Financial Economics, 134, 2019, 297-317, with Stefano Colonnello and Francesca Zucchi.
Structured Debt Ratings: Evidence on Conflicts of Interest
Journal of Financial Economics, 116, 2015, 46-60, with Harald Hau. (Award for best paper on financial markets at Paris December 2013 Finance Meeting)
Incentive Pay and Bank Risk-Taking: Evidence from Austrian, German, and Swiss Banks
Journal of International Economics, 96, 2015, 123-140, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter, and Johannes Steinbrecher.
WORKING PAPERS:
Platform Credit, Advertising, and Customer Capital
HEC Paris Research Paper no. FIN-2025-1543, with Yi Huang, Robing Han, Qi Sun, and Daniel Yi Xu.
Advertising plays a particularly crucial role in online marketplaces, where thousands of merchants offer similar products and compete for visibility and consumer attention. This study theoretically and empirically demonstrates that merchants on e-commerce platforms often engage in “underadvertising” due to financial constraints. By leveraging quasi-random variation in merchants’ access to credit from a major platform lender, we establish that alleviating financial constraints leads to substantial increases in advertising expenditures, enhanced shop visibility among customers, and ultimately, accelerated sales growth. Notably, high-quality merchants with top customer ratings are especially likely to utilize platform credit to invest in advertising.
All Hat and No Cattle? ESG Incentives in Executive Compensation
HEC Paris Research Paper No. FIN-2024-1506, with Stefanie Ehmann, Patrick Kampkötter, and Raphael Moritz. (featured on CLS Blue Sky Blog, Wirtschaftswoche, RSE Data News, LesEchos, Forbes, Bertelsmann Stiftung)
This paper examines the integration of ESG performance metrics into executive compensation using a detailed panel dataset of European executives. Despite becoming more widespread, most ESG metrics are largely discretionary, carry immaterial weights in payout calculations, and contribute little to executive pay risk. Such ESG metrics with arguably weak incentive power are common in financial firms and large companies, particularly for their most visible executives, which seems consistent with greenwashing. In contrast, binding ESG metrics with signifciant weights, which have the potential to influence incentives, are only found in sectors with a large environmental footprint.
Bank Capital Regulation with an Opportunistic Rating Agency
SFI Working Paper.
(Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award 2013, Swiss Finance Institute best paper doctoral award 2012)
This paper models the strategic interaction between a rating agency, a bank and a bank regulator who lacks information about bank asset risk. The regulator can either (1) make bank capital requirements contingent on credit ratings; or (2) set rating-independent capital requirements. Truthful ratings provide efficiency gains because they allow the regulator to constrain high risk bank investment without simultaneously reducing overall investment volume. However, if collusion between the rating agency and the bank corrupts rating quality, rating-independent regulation enhances welfare. The welfare benefits are largest if regulators maintain rating-contingent capital requirements and discipline rating agencies.
NON-REFEREED PUBLICATIONS:
Vergütung von Führungskräften: Welche Rolle Nachhaltigkeit spielt, Transforming Economies – BertelsmannStiftung, February 19, 2025, with Stefanie Ehmann, Patrick Kampkötter and Raphael Moritz
Executive Compensation For ESG Metrics: A Step In The Right Direction But Still A Long Way To Go, Forbes, February 5, 2025, with Daniel Brown
ESG: mieux lier l’engagement de l’entreprise à la rémuneration des dirigeants,
LesEchos, December 29, 2024
Are ESG Metrics in Executive Compensation All Hat and No Cattle?,
The Columbia Law School Blue Sky Blog, October 15, 2024, with Stefanie Ehmann, Patrick Kampkötter and Raphael Moritz
Financial sanctions: banks’ reactions depend on their location, research reveals
The Conversation, February 13, 2024
What does a bank’s payroll reveal about its risk-taking?
International Banker, April 10, 2017, with Harald Hau and Patrick Kampkötter
Optimale Vergütungsstrukturen in Banken
Die Bank, 2015(3), 65-69, with Florian Frank, Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher
Die Dosis macht das Gift – eine Analyse zum Einfluss von Bonuszahlungen auf die Profitabilität und das Risiko von Banken
ifo Schnelldienst 68 (03), 2015, 23‐31, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher.
Bankers’ Bonuses and Performance Sensitivity
voxeu.org, November 13, 2014, with Harald Hau, Patrick Kampkötter and Johannes Steinbrecher.
Corrupted Credit Ratings: Standard & Poor’s Lawsuit and the Evidence
voxeu.org, June 18, 2013, with Harald Hau
Matthias Efing 