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Agarwal, S., Choudhury, S. P., Fan, M., Klapper, L. (2026). Real-time economic disruption and recovery from Atlantic hurricanes across the US. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-78686-4

Climate projections indicate substantial increases in hurricane activity under continued warming, yet how local economies adjust to hurricanes in real time remains poorly understood. Using daily transaction data from 7,987 US ZIP codes exposed to 21 Atlantic hurricanes between 2017 and 2024, we examine aggregate merchant sales and consumer spending to quantify disruption and test for substitution across locations and channels. Hurricanes cause losses equivalent to about two days of typical sales, with limited offsetting substitution and recovery to pre-hurricane levels within ten days. Economic disruption increases with physical damage, evacuation restrictions, and infrastructure outages, while storm category alone is a poor predictor of short-run economic impacts. Disruption and recovery patterns also vary across industries, merchant types, and sales channels. These findings provide real-time evidence on how local economies adjust to hurricanes and help identify the conditions under which short-run economic disruption is most severe.

Related research news article: Hurricanes Cost Local Economies Two Days of Sales but Recover Within Ten Days

J. Sulaeman, and Q. Ye. (2026) Who Do You Vote For? Same-Race Voting Preferences in Director Elections. European Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper No. 872/2023, Review of Finance, accepted. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4333509

This paper highlights racial and ethnic preferences in corporate director elections. Using a comprehensive dataset of mutual fund voting records, we discover that mutual fund managers are more likely to vote for director nominees who share their racial or ethnic identity. Funds managed by White-dominated teams exhibit the strongest same-race preferences, particularly those in fund families with scarce minority representation. Same-race voting preferences have detrimental implications for the career outcomes of minority director candidates, and are associated with worse fund performance primarily when fund managers operate under weaker accountability. We investigate various potential mechanisms—including statistical discrimination, value maximization, conflicts of interest, social networks, and taste-based biases—and find that the evidence aligns most closely with a taste-based explanation for same-race preferential voting.

ESG ratings are intended to help investors identify companies managing environmental risks. Yet new SGFIN research published in PNAS finds that these assessments may not consistently reflect companies’ actual exposure to deforestation. Analysing corporate assets and supply-chain links to forest-risk commodities, the study shows that ratings respond more strongly to media coverage than to independently measured geospatial exposure. The findings underscore the need for sustainability assessments to incorporate direct evidence of environmental outcomes. Satellite data, ground-validated measures and supply-chain information could help strengthen ESG frameworks, enabling financial institutions to better identify nature-related risks and support credible sustainable investment decisions.

SGFIN LinkedIn | Journal Publication | NUSNews article

Y. Zhu, J. Sulaeman, & L.R. Carrasco. (2026). Corporate ESG assessments fail to capture actual deforestation exposure. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (38) e2526924123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2526924123

Deforestation is a fundamental upstream risk to global sustainability, affecting all three pillars of credible Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) assessments, which are crucial sources of information facilitating sustainable investment decisions. However, the efficacy of major commercial ESG assessment tools in capturing corporate deforestation exposure remains unknown. We examine the relationship between corporate ESG ratings from five major ESG rating providers and two geospatially driven measures of company-level deforestation: forest loss surrounding corporate assets across sectors globally and supply-chain exposure to six forest-risk commodities in four tropical countries. Although deforestation is featured prominently in ESG methodologies, we fail to find evidence that ESG scores consistently penalize companies for deforestation. Conversely, ESG ratings respond more to media-based signals than to geospatially quantified deforestation. ESG analyses present apparent biases. Companies with deforestation exposure through soy, pork, and chicken supply chains receive higher ESG scores, whereas palm oil producers are more consistently penalized for deforestation exposure. Future integration of geospatial, ground-validated deforestation data and supply chain information into ESG assessment frameworks is essential for ESG-driven sustainable investing to effectively contribute to curbing deforestation.

While awareness of sustainability is high among Singaporeans, the strongest driver of sustainable action is whether individuals feel a sense of personal ownership and believe their actions can make a difference. This is according to “Closing the Sustainability Action Gap: Insights from the Singlife-SGFIN Sustainable Future Index 2026” (SFI 2026) white paper launched today by leading homegrown financial services company Singlife and the Sustainable and Green Finance Institute (SGFIN) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The study found that ownership accounts for 74 per cent of sustainability action, compared with 18 per cent for awareness and 8 per cent for knowledge. This suggests that fostering a stronger sense of personal ownership is likely to have a bigger impact on encouraging sustainable behaviour than awareness-building efforts alone.

Eco-Business article | ESG Business article | Insurance Asia article

Building a more inclusive financial system requires understanding not only who receives capital, but also who gets the opportunity to provide it.

In this study, Johan Sulaeman (Director, SGFIN) and his co-authors examine whether startups respond differently to male and female investors. Using a large-scale randomized field experiment involving more than 40,000 U.S. startups, the authors send otherwise identical investment outreach from fictitious male and female investors.

The results reveal substantial gender differences at the very first stage of investor–startup matching. Startups are 23% more likely to open an email from a male investor and 27% more likely to visit his website than those of an otherwise identical female investor. The gender gap is particularly pronounced for angel investors, and professional credentials – which increase engagement for male investors – can actually reduce engagement with female investors.

The findings highlight an important dimension of inclusive and sustainable finance: gender-based frictions can affect not only entrepreneurs’ access to capital, but also investors’ access to investment opportunities and deal flow.

SGFIN LinkedIn | Financial Management journal article

Sustainability is no longer shaped only by governments, businesses and financial institutions. It is also influenced by the everyday choices of households. This publication offers a timely perspective on how household decisions can contribute to a greener, fairer and more prosperous future. By connecting sustainability with household behaviour, financial decision-making and broader societal outcomes, it highlights an often-overlooked dimension of the sustainability transition. The work provides valuable insights for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking to understand how individual choices can collectively drive meaningful change. It reinforces the importance of placing people and households at the heart of the sustainability agenda.

SGFIN LinkedIn | World Scientific – Household Sustainability

Agarwal, S., Wang, L., & Yang, Y. (2026). Online consumption and sustained air pollution exposure: Evidence from a quasi-experiment in China. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 121 (104267). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2026.104267

This study examines how air pollution affects household consumption in the digital economy. Using a proprietary dataset constructed from more than 500 million online transactions across 291 Chinese cities from 2017 to 2019, we study how online spending changes when pollution rises. To identify causal effects, we exploit quasi-exogenous variation in air quality generated by China’s winter heating policy and implement a difference-in-differences design comparing northern and southern cities around the heating period. We find that pollution increases online spending on health-related products and necessities and reduces spending on non-essential goods. The response is concentrated in the heating period itself, with little evidence of stockpiling before or delayed adjustment afterward. Item-level evidence shows that the increase in spending operates mainly through higher quantities purchased rather than higher payment per item. Additional evidence from Baidu search activity suggests that the spending response is associated with greater attention to pollution risks and protective products, as well as worse mood.

Gefen, O., D. Reeb, and J. Sulaeman.(2026). Choosing Startup Investors: Does Gender Matter? Financial Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.70063

We investigate whether startups respond differently to male and female investors during outbound origination, a setting where ale investors often report being marginalized by male founders. Using a randomized field experiment, we examine gender differences in startups’ responses to investor outreach. Leveraging the rapid increase in outbound origination, our field experiment involves 40,572 startups sending identical unsolicited emails from fictitious male and female investors. Startups are substantially more likely to read emails from male investors, visit their websites, and attempt to make contact. This pattern is stronger for angel investors than for VC investors. Disclosing professional certifications increases a male investor’s email’s likelihood of being read but reduces the corresponding female investor’s chances. A second experiment with 4836 recently incorporated startups reveals similar gender-based choices. The findings provide large-scale field evidence suggesting that gender-based frictions in entrepreneurial finance may extend beyond founders’ access to capital to investors’ access to deal flow.