Professor Shasha Li, PhD

Professor Shasha Li, PhD
Current Position

since 6/21

Economist in the Department of Financial Markets

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

since 6/21

Assistant Professor

Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

Research Interests

  • corporate finance
  • information economics
  • FinTechs

Shasha Li is Assistant Professor of Economics at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg since June 2021 and a member of the Department of Financial Markets at IWH. Her research focuses on corporate finance, information economics, and fintechs.

Shasha Li earned her bachelor's degree from Xiamen University and her master's degrees from Peking University and University of Hong Kong. She received her PhD from Bocconi University.

Your contact

Professor Shasha Li, PhD
Professor Shasha Li, PhD
Mitglied - Department Financial Markets
Send Message +49 345 7753-743 Personal page

Publications

Working Papers

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Green Investing, Information Asymmetry, and Capital Structure

Shasha Li Biao Yang

in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 20, 2023

Abstract

We investigate how optimal attention allocation of green-motivated investors changes information asymmetry in financial markets and thus affects firms‘ financing costs. To guide our empirical analysis, we propose a model where investors with heterogeneous green preferences endogenously allocate limited attention to learn market-level or firm-specific fundamental shocks. We find that a higher fraction of green investors in the market leads to higher aggregate attention to green firms. This reduces the information asymmetry of green firms, leading to higher price informativeness and lower leverage. Moreover, the information asymmetry of brown firms and the market increases with the share of green investors. Therefore, greater green attention is associated with less market efficiency. We provide empirical evidence to support our model predictions using U.S. data. Our paper shows how the growing demand for sustainable investing shifts investors‘ attention and benefits eco-friendly firms.

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