Publications

Agarwal, S., Chen, S., He, H., Huang, X., & Li, T. (2024). Associations between stock market fluctuations and stress-related emergency room visits in China, Natural Mental Health 2, 909-915.https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00267-5

Here we study the relationship between stock market fluctuations and emergency room visits in China. Using daily emergency room visit records from the three largest hospitals in Beijing from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012, we find that a one percentage point decrease in daily market returns (Growth Enterprises Index) is associated with 0.185 (P = 0.040, confidence interval (CI) = 0.009 to 0.361, or 0.7%) increased cases of cardiovascular diseases and 0.020 (P = 0.060, CI = 0 to −0.041, or 2.5%) increased cases of mental disorders on that day. Moreover, a one percentage point increase in daily market returns (Growth Enterprises Index) is associated with 0.035 (P = 0.007, CI = 0.010 to 0.059, or 3.3%) increase in cases of alcohol abuse on that day. The health effects are highly nonlinear, instantaneous and more salient for older people and males. By contrast, diseases that are less related to psychological stress (for example, infections and parasitic diseases) are not significantly affected by market fluctuations. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that a ten percentage point decrease in daily market returns is associated with an approximately RMB 35 million increase in national medical expenses related to emergency room services.

Adbi, A., Agarwal, S., & Natarajan, S. (2025). Global heterogeneity in ETS rollouts and subsequent decarbonization outcomes. Energy Economics, 132, 108921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108921

This study explores how emissions trading schemes (ETSs) worldwide influence decarbonization. It finds that while ETSs can reduce carbon intensity, emissions, and boost renewable energy adoption, their effectiveness varies across countries. Key factors include reliance on natural resource rents, economic development level, and whether ETSs are nationwide or partial. The research shows that higher ETS carbon prices strengthen emissions reductions, underscoring both the potential and limits of ETSs in driving global climate action.

Agarwal S., Fan, M., & Qin, Y. (2025). Avoid urban development policy that fuels climate risk, Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02365-3

Urban development policies, designed to improve city resilience, could unintentionally increase the exposure to climate risk. This Comment discusses the impact of misaligned incentives, miscalculated benefits and costs, and overlooked behavioural responses on policy outcomes, as well as future directions.

Ong, K., Mao, R., Satapathy, R., Filho, R. S., Cambria, E., Sulaeman, J., & Mengaldo, G. (2025). Explainable natural language processing for corporate sustainability analysis, Information Fusion, 115(102726). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2024.102726

This paper examines how the inherent complexity of sustainability leads to subjectivity in corporate sustainability assessments. It highlights that sustainability disclosures are often incomplete, ambiguous, unreliable, and highly sophisticated, making consistent evaluation challenging. Moreover, interpreting such disclosures is a resource-intensive process prone to human bias. The authors propose that Natural Language Processing (NLP) can automate parts of the sustainability analysis, improving efficiency and reducing some aspects of subjectivity. By further integrating linguistic analysis techniques with Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) capabilities, the study suggests a pathway to enhance transparency, interpretability, and reliability in sustainability assessments.

Adbi, A., Agarwal, S., & Ghosh, P. (2025). Urban noise pollution and learning in developing economies, Nature Cities 2, 6-7. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-024-00189-4

Many cities in the developing world are witnessing high noise pollution due to infrastructure development and growing traffic. Urban planning interventions may be necessary to mitigate potential adverse effect of noise pollution on the learning outcomes of young residents in developing economies.

Santana, J. J., & Kim, S. (2025). From values to codes: A computational text analysis of the codification of occupational ethics. Organization Studies, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406251317255

The institutionalization of occupations tends to assume homogenization of occupational values. This study addresses the question of how members of an occupation with dissenting preferences reach consensus on a code of ethics. We build on prior theorization of occupational institutionalization and institutional discourse to theorize ethical codification as a dynamic discursive process of internal dissent and consensus culminating in a professional code of ethics. We use email data from the IEEE-ACM Software Engineering Ethics and Professional Practice Committee tasked with producing the 1997 Software Engineering Code of Ethics to show how ethical codification follows a process of initial competition followed by semantic convergence. This study demonstrates how natural language processing and semantic network analysis can contribute to discourse analyses of institutional processes.

Agarwal, S., Qin, Y., Sing, T. F., & Zhan, C. (2025) Sea level rise risks, adaptation strategies, and real estate prices in Singapore. Journal of Public Economics, 241 (105290), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2024.105290

This study exploits the Singapore Prime Minister’s announcement of the areas affected by sea level rise (SLR) within the country and its adaptation strategies valued at 100 billion Singapore dollars. Utilizing transaction-level data with exact locations, we find that public housing prices dropped by 7.2% in SLR areas four years after the announcement relative to non-SLR areas. In SLR areas with adaptation, the price depreciation was mitigated to 0.6%. In the private housing sector, freehold properties benefit more from adaptation strategies than leasehold properties. We calibrate the long-term discount rates before and after the shock at 2.27% and 2.14% in SLR areas and 2.35% and 2.12% in SLR areas with adaptation, respectively. (JEL H43, R21, R28, R38, R51, Q54)

Agarwal, S., Ghosh, P., & Zheng, H.(2024). Consumption response to a natural disaster: Evidence of price and income shocks from Chennai flood, Energy Economics, 131 (107323), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.107323

In this paper, we utilize monthly individual-level financial data and item-level supermarket sales data to study how consumption responds to one of the costliest natural disasters in India. We find that consumption dropped by 11% during the disaster, 65% of which was recovered after the disaster. On average, consumption per capita dropped by $312 per year, which costs about 5% of the GDP. We also show that natural disasters depressed consumption through income shocks instead of price shocks. Consumers smooth consumption using credit card, banks loans and wealth in coping with the shocks.

Agarwal, S., Ding, Y.H., Kuang, W.D., & Zhu, X. (2023). Are environmental punishments good news or bad news? Evidence from China. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 120 (102847), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2023.102847

This study investigates how the disclosure of environmental punishments influences housing prices in the context of rising public awareness of environmental issues. Examining data on firm-level environmental punishments and housing resale transactions in Beijing from January 2015 to December 2017, we observed a significant average price drop of 1.84% for houses located within 0.5 km of environmentally punished firms. The impact intensified with multiple environmental punishments and was more pronounced during heating seasons and national events. We identify three mechanisms explaining the effects of environmental punishments on housing prices: “information disclosure,” where the impact magnifies with public release and environmental information searching; “information dissemination,” revealing that negative effects decrease with distance and over time; and “health concern,” indicating stronger responses from older homebuyers and those with children compared to unmarried young homebuyers.

Liu, C., Shu, T., Sulaeman, J., Shu, T., & Yeung, P. (2023) Life is too short? Bereaved managers and investment decisions”, Review of Finance, 27,4 ,1373-1421, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfac067

We study how the loss of a family member affects the investment decisions of managers in large organizations. We discovered that when managers experience the death of a loved one, they tend to take fewer risks in making investment decisions. This was observed in both mutual funds and publicly traded companies. In the case of mutual funds managed by bereaved individuals, we noticed that they displayed smaller tracking errors, had lower active share measures, and allocated more of their portfolios to larger stocks after experiencing a bereavement event. Similarly, firms led by bereaved CEOs reduced their capital expenditures and made fewer acquisitions following such events. Our analysis indicates that these changes in behavior can be attributed to emotional factors rather than other explanations (e.g., attention distraction). The risk-averse decisions made by bereaved managers have negative consequences on the performance of the funds and companies they oversee.

Agarwal, S., Han, Y., Qin, Y., & Zhu, H., (2023). Disguised pollution: industrial activities in the dark. Journal of Public Economics, 223(104904), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2023.104904

In this paper, we show that some Chinese firms, under the cover of darkness, emit increased amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2). Using hourly pollution data from 1,583 national monitoring stations in China from January 2015 to December 2017, we found a significant increase in industrial toxin SO2 levels after sunset in highly industrialized areas. This insight enhances our understanding of industrial firms’ pollution practices. While these monitoring stations are strategically placed in heavily polluted industrial regions, nearby firms engage in covert pollution activities, taking advantage of the lack of direct government oversight, especially during nighttime hours. Our findings highlight the necessity for a more comprehensive environmental monitoring system, encompassing both daytime and nighttime operations and their associated toxic emissions. This system should extend its coverage beyond large corporations to include smaller firms in industrialized areas.

Gefen, O., Reeb, D. & Sulaeman, J. (2023) Startups’ demand for accounting expertise: evidence from a randomized field experiment. Review of Accounting Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11142-023-09775-8

This paper examines whether startup companies prefer investors with accounting expertise. To test this, we conducted an experiment with over 13,000 startup companies in the US, sending them emails pretending to be interested investors, some with accounting certifications (CPA) and some without any special credentials. As a result, we found that the startups were more likely to respond to the emails from the investors with CPA certifications. This preference held even when the investors pretended to be different types of investors, such as angel investors or venture capitalists. This shows that startups value accounting expertise in their investors significantly. In a follow-up experiment, we found that startups preferred CPA-certified investors over those with a general business degree (MBA), reinforcing the importance of accounting expertise to them.