Research Statement Sraer November 2013

My research focuses on corporate finance and behavioral finance and includes empirical and applied theory papers. My work in corporate finance specifically aims at providing clean and novel empirical evidence on the real effects induced by frictions in the market for financing. My main contributions in this area have been to investigate (1) the role of real estate collateral on economic activity (capital expenditure, labor demand, entrepreneurial decisions) and (2) how various forms of corporate ownership (e.g., family ownership, or ownership by a private equity group) affect firm behavior. My work in behavioral finance builds on rigorous theoretical frameworks to analyze empirically the role of investors’ behavioral biases on asset prices. I put a special emphasis on linking the theory precisely to the data. Two main questions have been at the center of my research in this area: the determinant of volatility and the failure of the risk/return trade-off. In this research statement, I describe my main contributions to these fields.