WENQIAO ZHANG, Ph.D., CFA
Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies Email: wzhang42@crimson.ua.edu University of Alabama 361 Stadium Drive, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
EDUCATION Ph.D. Finance, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL August 2019 M.S. Finance (with Distinction), University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX December 2013 B.A Business Administration, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea August 2012
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS Research Interests: Empirical Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance Teaching Interests: Corporate Finance, Investments
WORKING PAPERS “CEO Personal Donating Behavior and Corporate Social Responsibility” with Lixiong Guo and Lei Kong • Presented at the University of Mississippi (University, MS, 2019), China International Conference in Finance (Guangzhou, China, 2019), FMA Asia/Pacific Conference (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2019), WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany, 2019), FMA Annual Meeting (New Orleans, LA, 2019)
“CEO Altruism and Corporate Actions” with Lixiong Guo and Lei Kong
“CEOs and CFOs: Does Age Gap Matter?” with Daewoung Choi • Presented at SFA Annual Meeting (Key west, FL, 2017), FMA Annual Meeting (New Orleans, LA, 2019)
WORK-IN-PROGRESS “Restrictions on Managers’ Outside Employment Opportunities and Firm Risk” “Charitable CEOs and Corporate Tax Aggressiveness” with Haoyi Yang
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Instructor • Investments (FI 414), Fall 2018 • Money and Capital Markets (FI 412), Spring 2018 • Business Finance (FI 302), Summer 2016
Graduate Teaching Assistant • Business Finance (FI 302), Fall 2017, Summer 2017, Summer 2015 • Money and Capital Markets (FI 412), Summer 2017, Spring 2017 • Financial Management (FI 504, Graduate Level), Fall 2016 • Corporate Valuation (FI 505, Graduate Level), Fall 2016 • Financial Analysis and Modeling (FI 389), Spring 2016, Fall 2015, Spring 2015, Fall 2014 • Quantitative Investment Analysis (FI 515, Graduate Level), Fall 2015
SKILLS AND CREDENTIALS Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Charter Holder Bloomberg Assessment Test, Overall Score 660 (98th Percentile) Bloomberg Essentials Training Certificates Computer Skill: SAS, Stata, SQL, Excel financial modeling Languages: Chinese (Native), English (Fluent), Korean (Intermediate) 1
HONORS AND AWARDS Summer Excellence in Research Funds ($4,000), University of Alabama, 2018 Graduate Student Research and Travel Funds, University of Alabama, 2017 Graduate Assistantship, University of Alabama, 2014 – 2019 Dean’s Excellence Scholarship, University of Texas at Dallas, 2012, 2013 Honor Student Award, Konkuk University, Fall 2011, Fall 2010 Scholarship for Foreign Student, Konkuk University, 2008 – 2012
CONFERENCES FMA Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, 2019 FMA Asia/Pacific Conference, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 2019 China International Conference in Finance, Guangzhou, China, 2019 SFA Annual Meeting, Key west, FL, 2017
REFERENCES Lei Kong (Chair) Assistant Professor of Finance Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama [email protected] 205-348-8988
Lixiong Guo Assistant Professor of Finance Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama [email protected] 205-348-2965
Shamar Stewart Assistant Professor of Finance Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [email protected] 540-231-6108
H. Shawn Mobbs C.T. Fitzpatrick Endowed Chair of Value Investing & Associate Professor of Finance Department of Economics, Finance, and Legal Studies University of Alabama [email protected] 205-348-6097
Haoyi Yang Assistant Professor of Accounting Nanjing University Business School Nanjing University [email protected]
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ABSTRACTS OF SELECTED WORKING PAPERS
CEO Personal Donating Behavior and Corporate Social Responsibility
Using a hand-collected dataset of CEOs’ charitable donations, we find that firms managed by CEOs who make regular charitable donations have significantly higher CSR performance than those managed by CEOs who occasionally donate or never donate. To identify causation, we examine changes in firms’ CSR performance around exogenous CEO turnover events with a difference-in-difference approach. We find that when a non-routine-donor CEO or non-donor CEO is replaced by a routine donor CEO, the firm’s CSR performance improves. Also, using natural disasters as quasi-natural experiments that increase public awareness about CSR, we find that firms managed by routine donor CEOs increase their firm’s CSR performance more than firms managed by their peer CEOs after the shocks. Our results are consistent with behavioral consistency theory which predicts that a CEO’s personal socially responsible behavior can predict his firm’s socially responsible behavior. Overall, we provide important new evidence on why firms engage in CSR and identify a new CEO characteristic that can predict such engagements.
CEO Altruism and Corporate Actions
In this study, we document a unique type of CEOs who are not always selfish, that is, altruistic CEOs. Specifically, we find evidence that when faced with weak corporate governance, altruistic CEOs are less likely to initiate value- destroying acquisitions, where we construct altruistic CEOs using their personal donation records to charities. Furthermore, this difference between altruistic CEOs and their peers are stronger when corporate governance is weaker. This indicates that not all CEOs are always self-interested. In addition to corporate takeovers, we show that altruistic CEOs are less likely to engage in corporate wrongful activities, resulting in fewer lawsuits against the firm, fewer earnings manipulations, and lower insider trading profits. We contribute to the standard agency theory by showing that managers are not universally self-interested and identify a possible measure to spot more selfless managers by using charitable donations.
CEOs and CFOs: Does Age Gap Matter?
This study investigates the relationship between the CEO and the CFO focusing on one of the visible cultural attributes, age. Substantial age dissimilarity between the two, giving rise to cognitive conflicts, increases the difficulty of communications and might negatively affect firm value. We measure this age dissimilarity using the age gap between the CEO and the CFO to examine its correlation with the firm’s financial performance. We find evidence showing that firm performance is negatively correlated with this age gap. Moreover, as the high-tech industry requires more efficient and timely communications among executives, the age gap effects are stronger for those firms. Further, when human capital is of more importance, that is, for younger firms, the age gap effects are stronger. As an alternative to age-based analysis, we also analyze the effects of a generational gap between the CEO and the CFO. We find that firm value tends to be lower when the generational gap exists between the two.
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