PhD Dissertation Defense, Xucheng Shi, Accounting and Management Control

Congratulations to Dr Xucheng Shi, Accounting and Management Control specialization, who successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation at HEC Paris, on June 22, 2021. Xucheng will join the ESSEC Business School as assistant professor from next September. 

Dissertation Topic: 
Three Essays on Information Intermediaries in Capital Markets

Advisor: 

Pepa Kraft, Professor, HEC Paris
 

Jury Members:   

François Brochet, Associate Professor, Boston University 
David Oesch, Professor, University of Zurich 
David Erkens, Professor, China Europe International Business School 
Fabrizio Ferri, Associate Professor, University of Miami 
Hervé Stolowy, Professor, HEC Paris 

Pepa Kraft, Professor, HEC Paris, Advisor

Abstract:
This dissertation consists of three chapters that empirically investigate the economics of information intermediaries. The first chapter investigates whether a proxy advisory firm’s parent company has a vested interest in proxy votes. The second chapter presents a joint work with Han Wu, examining whether proxy advisors exert an active role in influencing executive compensation or merely a passive role as information intermediaries. The third chapter, joint with Zhang Zhang, explores whether credit reports from investorpaid rating agencies provide incremental information of corporate debt issuers’ credit risk.