About

Tracy Yue Wang is the John Spooner Professor of Finance at the Carlson School of Management. Her expertise lies in the fields of corporate governance, law and economics, and behavioral finance. Her current research explores the impact of prominent societal trends such as increasing attention to ESG and DEI, increasing polarization in ideology, and increasing income inequality on corporate finance and corporate governance. She has also established expertise in research related to corporate securities fraud, securities market regulation, and the value impact of management. She has published in top economics, finance, and accounting journals such as the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, and Journal of Accounting and Economics. She currently serves as an editor for the Journal of Corporate Finance.

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Finance
• Public relations
• Accounting
• Financial economics
• Marketing
• Law
• Industrial organization
• Business administration
• Labour economics
• Demographic economics
• Monetary economics
• Microeconomics
• Geography
• Gender studies
• Management

Selected publications

• Political Divide and the Composition of Households’ Equity Portfolios

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023 · 14 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Economics
  • Political Science
  PublisherDOI

• Corporate Diversity Culture Spillover

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Public Attention to Gender Equality and Board Gender Diversity

  Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis · 2022 · 82 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Demographic economics

  Abstract We document that heightened public attention to gender equality is associated with an increase in board gender diversity. Improvements in diversity are more pronounced in firms with a corporate culture that is already sympathetic to gender equality. When public attention to gender equality increases, firms reach out to a larger pool of women, such as women without industry experience or outside their network, but female director appointments do not appear to be dilutive of the board’s skills. Instead, we observe less reliance on connections for director appointments and a decrease in the propensity to appoint connected men.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do Equity Markets Care <b>about Income Inequality? Evidence from Pay Ratio Disclosure</b>

  The Journal of Finance · 2022 · 125 citations

  Senior author
  • Monetary economics
  • Economics
  • Labour economics

  ABSTRACT We examine equity markets’ reaction to the first‐time disclosure of the CEO‐worker pay ratio by U.S. public companies in 2018. We find that firms disclosing higher pay ratios experience significantly lower abnormal announcement returns. Firms whose shareholders are more inequality‐averse experience a more negative market response to high pay ratios. Furthermore, during 2018 more inequality‐averse investors rebalance their portfolios away from stocks with a high pay ratio relative to other investors. Our results suggest that equity markets are concerned about high within‐firm pay dispersion, and investors’ inequality aversion is a channel through which high pay ratios negatively affect firm value.

  PublisherDOI

• Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Retention

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022 · 18 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Business administration
  PublisherDOI

• Skilled Labor Risk and Corporate Policies

  The Review of Corporate Finance Studies · 2021 · 33 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Labour economics
  • Economics
  • Business

  Abstract We measure U.S. listed companies’ skilled labor risk—that is, the potential failure in attracting and retaining skilled labor, by the intensity of discussions on this issue in 10-K filings. We show that this measure effectively captures firm risk due to the mobility of skilled labor. We find that an increase from the 25th to the 75th percentile in the skilled labor risk would increase the skilled labor wage by 22% (or $15,593) and also lead to higher equity-based incentive pay. The skilled labor risk also interacts with other corporate policies such as financial leverage, cash holdings, and M&amp;As. (JEL G30, G32, G34, H20, J20, J24, J40, J41) Received September 28, 2020; editorial decision March 12, 2021 by Editor Andrew Ellul.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Industry informational interactions and corporate fraud

  Journal of Corporate Finance · 2021 · 20 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Monetary economics
  PublisherDOI

• Equity Market Reaction to Pay Dispersion and Shareholders’ Prosocial Preferences

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Public Attention to Gender Equality and the Demand for Female Directors

  RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintSenior author

  We explore whether demand factors contribute to low female board participation. We use time-varying public attention to gender equality as a shock that differentially affects the demand for female directors of firms with different ex ante culture towards gender equality. We find that public attention is associated with an increase in female board representation, especially in firms whose ex ante culture is more sympathetic to gender equality. Furthermore, public attention to gender equality changes the way female directors are recruited. First, the pool of female directors broadens without any obvious compromises on quality. Second, public attention to gender equality reduces the probability that connected men are appointed, leading to higher female board representation.

  Publisher

• Public Attention to Gender Equality and the Demand for Female Directors

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Yihui Pan

  University of Utah

  64 shared

• Michael S. Weisbach

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  64 shared

• Andrew Winton

  University of Minnesota

  27 shared

• Mariassunta Giannetti

  19 shared

• Stephan Siegel

  18 shared

• Yue Qiu

  14 shared

• Craig Burnside

  13 shared

• Christian Leuz

  13 shared