Elisabeth Kempf
Elisabeth Kempf joined Chicago Booth in 2016. Her primary research interest is in empirical corporate finance. Her research has explored ideological biases and conflicts of interest in information production by financial analysts and economists, as well as issues related to corporate governance. Her work has appeared in the Review of Financial Studies and in the Journal of Financial Economics, and has received a number of awards, including the Financial Research Association Best Paper Award, the AQR Top Finance Graduate Award 2016, the WFA Cubist Systematic Strategies Ph.D. Candidate Award for Outstanding Research, and the Young Scholars Finance Consortium Best Ph.D. Paper Award. Her research has been featured in several news outlets including Bloomberg, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal. Kempf is also a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy and Research.
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
How the US Partisan Divide Shapes Global Capital Flows
A new empirical paper explores how partisan perception affects capital allocation beyond national borders, showing that the global investment practices of US...
ESG, Corporate Governance & Future of the Firm
Are American Firms Becoming Politically Polarized?
A new paper examines political polarization among top executives in S&P 1500 firms, highlighting a robust trend toward political polarization in corporate...
Monetary Policy
Central Bankers Face Potential Conflict of Interest When Writing About QE Policies
As Quantitative Easing makes a return during the global Covid-19 pandemic, its effectiveness has once again come under intense debate in both...
Latest news
Antitrust and Competition
Revising the Merger Guidelines To Return Antitrust to a Sound Economic and Legal Foundation
The draft Merger Guidelines largely replace the consumer welfare standard of the Chicago School with the lessening of competition principle found in the 1914 Clayton Act. This shift would enable the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division to utilize the full extent of modern economics to respond to rising concentration and its harmful effects, writes John Kwoka.
Economic History
How Anthony Downs’s Analysis Explains Rational Voters’ Preferences for Populism
In new research, Cyril Hédoin and Alexandre Chirat use the rational-choice theory of economist Anthony Downs to explain how populism rationally arises to challenge established institutions of liberal democracy.
Antitrust and Competition
The Impact of Large Institutional Investors on Innovation Is Not as Positive as One Might Expect
In a new paper, Bing Guo, Dennis C. Hutschenreiter, David Pérez-Castrillo, and Anna Toldrà -Simats study how large institutional investors impact firm innovation. The authors find that large institutional investors encourage internal research and development but discourage firm acquisitions that would add patents and knowledge to their firms’ portfolios, hampering overall innovation.
Antitrust and Competition
The FTC Needs To Focus Arguments on Technological Transitions After High-Profile Losses
Joshua Gray and Cristian Santesteban argue that the Federal Trade Commission's focus in Meta-Within and Microsoft-Activision on narrow markets like VR fitness apps and consoles missed the boat on the real competition issue: the threat to future competition in nascent markets like VR platforms and cloud gaming.
Commentary
We Need Better Research on the Relationship Between Market Power and Productivity in the Hospital Industry
Antitrust debates have largely ignored questions about the relationship between market power and productivity, and scholars have provided little guidance on the issue due to data limitations. However, data is plentiful on the hospital industry for both market power and operating costs and productivity, and researchers need to take advantage, writes David Ennis.
Antitrust and Competition
Debating the Draft Merger Guidelines: Transcript
On September 7, the Stigler Center hosted a webinar to discuss the draft merger guidelines. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of the event.
Commentary
Holding Up the News
Meta has silenced news organizations’ social media accounts in response to Canada’s Online News Act, a law not yet in effect. Josh Braun describes the reasoning behind such legislation, its potential flaws, and how Meta, particularly Facebook, has turned the Canadian wildfire crisis into a regulatory pressure campaign.
