Luxi (Lucy) Wang

Luxi (Lucy) Wang

Research Associate @ University of Cambridge

Welcome to my website! I’m a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. I received my PhD in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023. I am an Advisory Editor for the Review of Financial Studies since September, 2023.

I work in the area of empirical corporate finance. My research focuses on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), labor finance with an emphasis on inventors, corporate innovation, and climate finance. I am also interested in empirical banking.

I am on the job market during the 2024-2025 academic year.

You can download my CV here and reach me by Email: l.wang@jbs.cam.ac.uk

Peer-reviewed Publications

Working Papers and Selected Work in Progress

  • The Human Capital Reallocation of M&A: Inventor-level analysis (JMP)
    Abstract Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of innovative firms lead to significant inventor restructuring, with high turnover among target inventors. Following M&As, both retained and departing inventors show increased patenting performance. Acquirers retain productive inventors whose expertise aligns with the merging firms, while external hires bring knowledge from non-core areas. Productivity gains for inventors switching jobs are concentrated among non-top performers and those with higher technological overlap at their new employers. These findings suggest that M&As reduce labor market frictions for inventors, reallocating them to more valuable roles within and beyond the merging firms.
  • Innovation Ripples: The Impact of Departed Inventors after M&As
    Abstract This paper studies the impact of departed inventors after M&As on non-merging firms. Following M&As in innovative firms, the non-merging firms hiring these departed inventors from merging firms significantly improve their patenting performance. Further, I use the state-level variation in the enforceability of non-compete agreements as an instrument for the firms hiring these inventors to establish the causal relationship of the spillover effect. The existence of positive spillover effects suggests that the benefits of mergers are plausibly underestimated and extend beyond the merging companies.
  • Antitrust Regulations and Corporate Innovation Strategies: Evidence from the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, with Gaurav Kankanhalli and Daniel Ferres
    Abstract This study investigates how changes in the stringency of antitrust regulations concerning anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions (M&As) influence firms’ innovation strategies. We do so by exploiting the 2010 United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission announcement of revised horizontal merger guidelines, which represented a notable relaxation of various thresholds concerning the classification of anti-competitive M&A deals. We measure firms' exposures to the revised guidelines by examining market reactions to their initial announcement, and identify firms with positive Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CARs). Using a difference-in-differences approach, we attribute the value creation to two channels: (1) market power channel, where exposed firms show improved operating performance, and (2) innovation channel, where exposed firms’ innovation performance improves in terms of the number and economic value of the patents they file. Focusing on the latter channel, we provide novel evidence that exposed firms increase their collaborative innovation. Our results shed new light on an important yet indirect potential consequence of relaxed antitrust enforcement in altering the costs and benefits of firms engaging in innovation collaboration with peers.

  • ESG-driven Corporate Divestments, with Frederik Schlingemann and René Stulz

  • Firm innovation and Accounting Quality, with Jenny Chu and Kai Wai Hui

Book Chapter