Abstract: This paper investigates how technology affects collateral liquidity in mortgage markets. Exploiting the staggered introduction of electronic bidding across Florida’s counties, I show that foreclosure auction success increases by 28%, and price discounts shrink by 45%. Electronic auction winners are more likely to be local non-professionals, who are found to flip acquired properties less often expost. I also find that credit supply expands and mortgage loan rates decrease, consistent with lenders incorporating lower foreclosure costs into lending decisions. Overall, this evidence suggests that technological modernization can improve allocative efficiency, deepen liquidity, and foster financial inclusion in real estate markets. 

Selected conferences: EFA 2022, EEA 2022, HEC PhD workshop, ERIM*, 28th ERES**, 4th CefES conference 2022, Tri-City Day-Ahead Workshop on Financial Regulation, Nova Finance PhD workshop.

*Best Paper Award of the 2021-2022 ERIM PhD Seminar Series; **Best Paper Award for the Refereed Session 2022; 

ECON JM Best Paper Runner-Up Award by UniCredit Foundation and European Economic Association; 

10th SUERF/UniCredit Foundation Prize; 

This paper examines whether the risk of a future collateral fire sale affects lending decisions. We study US mortgage applications and exploit exogenous variation in foreclosure frictions for identification. We find lenders to be less likely to approve mortgages when anticipated losses due to uncoordinated collateral liquidations are high, and when there is elevated risk of joint collateral liquidation. These results suggest that fire sale risk has implications for credit allocation, and that lenders' collective origination decisions mitigate fire sale risk ex-post. However, we also find the effects to be significantly weaker outside periods in which fire sales are salient.

Conference presentations: FIRS 2022, EFA 2022, Norges Bank-CEPR 2021, 3rd QMUL Economics-Finance Workshop, De Nederlandsche Bank, 2021 RiskLab/BoF/ESRB, EFiC 2021, The Finance Symposium 2021; 5th Benelux Banking Research Day, PhD Finance forum - AEFIN, European Economic Association (EEA) conference 2020, 7th Emerging Scholars in Banking and Finance (2020), EFiC 2023 (scheduled). 

Coverage: World Bank: All About Finance.

Conference presentations: Erasmus University, Bocconi University, Edinburgh Corporate Finance Conference, FINEST 2023 Spring Workshop*.

*Best Paper Award in Memory of Radha Gopalan

Abstract: We investigate the effectiveness of business shutdowns to contain the Covid-19 disease. In March 2020, Italy shut down operations in selected sectors of its economy. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that municipalities with higher exposure to closed sectors experienced subsequently lower mortality rates. The implied life savings exceed 9,400 people over a period of less than a month. We also find that business closures exhibited rapidly diminishing returns and had large effects outside the closed businesses themselves, including spillovers to other municipalities. Overall, the results suggest that business shutdowns are effective, but should be selectively implemented and centrally coordinated.

Coverage: BlueSky, BizEd AACSB International, Growth Hub, lavoce (in Italian).

Data: 10.25397/eur.14500491 and 10.25397/eur.14500449

Abstract: In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-genetaring process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in sample estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence-generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: non-standard errors. Our crowd-sourced empirical analysis finds that non-standard errors are sizable, on par with standard errors. Their size (I) co-varies only weakly with team merits, reproducibility, or peer rating, (ii) declines significantly after peer-feedback, and (iii) is underestimated by participants. 

Selected conferences: Microstructure Exchange, FIRS, RBFC, SED, SoFiE*, Vieco, and WFA.

*Runner-up for the best paper prize.

Coverage: Die Zeit.