Welcome to my website!
I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Accounting at Bocconi University and I will be on the job market for the academic year 2025/26.
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My research primarily examines the capital market implications of unconventional information sources and non-traditional disclosure topics, with a particular emphasis on the informational role of payout policy guidance.
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In the 2023-24 academic year, I was a visiting PhD student at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the Bocconi PhD program, I obtained my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Bocconi University and worked for a consulting company. ​​
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Working Papers
I examine whether managers adjust voluntary disclosure choices in response to firms’ inclusion in stock screeners (i.e., digital tools used by retail investors to filter securities). Managers face significant challenges in engaging retail investors due to their disclosure processing costs. The inclusion in popular stock screeners can alleviate this engagement friction by increasing the likelihood that retail investors will process the firm’s disclosure. Therefore, to the extent that retail investors have a long-term investment horizon, I expect managers to increase the voluntary disclosure of information relevant to screener users following the inclusion event. I exploit the launch and subsequent expansion of the first freely accessible and highly influential dividend stock screener for retail dividend investors, disseminated through social media platforms and professional websites. Leveraging a novel dataset of dividend-related forward-looking statements, I find that newly included managers increase dividend guidance. The effect is concentrated on the voluntary disclosure of target payout ratios, which helps investors forecast long-term dividend levels based on earnings projections. Additionally, retail investors’ trading activity increases, and the market reacts more strongly to dividend guidance announcements. Taken together, these findings suggest that firms’ inclusion in popular stock screeners influences managerial voluntary disclosure and has economic implications for how the market responds to such disclosure.
Stock Screeners and Managers' Voluntary Disclosure: Evidence from Retail Dividend Investors
(Solo Authored - Job Market Paper)
Available Upon Request
Commitment through Forecasting: Managerial Buyback Guidance and Payout Policy
(With Z. Kaplan, L. Vollon, X. Wu)
3ʳᵈ Round R&R at Journal of Accounting and Economics
We develop a novel database of buyback guidance forecasts and use this database to examine the association between buyback guidance and actual repurchase policy. Motivated by dynamic disclosure theory, which shows that current disclosure creates expectations of future disclosure, we argue that repurchase policy is jointly determined with the decision to issue guidance. While buyback guidance usually covers only the current fiscal year, we hypothesize that short-term buyback forecasts signal a long-term commitment to repurchases. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that firms issuing buyback guidance repurchase more shares, exhibit more persistent repurchase behavior, and continue to issue guidance in the future. We find larger market reactions to the first instance of buyback guidance, consistent with our proposed mechanism that the initial forecast signals a shift to a more intensive capital return policy. Tests examining the determinants of guidance and subsequent changes in repurchase intensity suggest a key driver of forecast issuance is the potential for repurchases to be accretive, increasing earnings per share. Examining the costs of this commitment, we find no evidence that guiders substitute investment for repurchases but do find evidence forecasting firms pay 1-5% more for their repurchased shares.
Payout Policy, Innovation Value and Investors' Beliefs
(with T. Martens)
We examine whether a firm’s payout policy influences investors' beliefs about the value of its investments. We argue that the uncertainty underlying the investment process and the commitment implied by the payout policy jointly affect investors' valuation of a firm's investment. Leveraging the high uncertainty surrounding the timing and outcomes of the innovation process, we predict managers will increase their payout commitments as uncertainty resolves positively. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that managers with more successful and valuable innovations raise sticky dividends while reducing more flexible share repurchases. The higher commitment of dividend payments implies a different information value for investors compared to share repurchases. By exploiting the plausibly exogenous timing of patent grants (i.e., the resolution of uncertainty), we provide asset-level evidence that investors assign a higher value to patents granted following dividend increases but find no evidence they do so following repurchase authorizations. Taken together, our findings suggest that innovative firms adjust their payout commitments based on the expected value of current investments in innovation, prompting investors to update their beliefs accordingly.
Teaching
a/y 2024/25
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Financial Statement Analysis
Student Evaluations Mean: 9.25/10 - 46 students​
Ranked in the top 8% of faculty members (600+)
a/y 2022/23
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Microeconomics
Student Evaluations Mean: 8.75/10 - 88 students​ -
​Intermediate Financial Accounting
Student Evaluations Mean: 8.29/10 ​ - 51 students
LECTURER
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TEACHING ASSISTANT
a/y 2020/21 and 2021/22
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Financial Statement Analysis​
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Fair Value Accounting, Reporting and Valuation
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Intermediate Financial Accounting
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Performance Measurement and Control System