Digests

Alexander Tuft and Emmanuel Yimfor
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 717–756, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf057

We provide the first causal evidence that relationships between venture capital firms and investment banks matter enormously for accessing public markets. When VCs lose an established underwriter relationship through bank mergers or closures, their IPO exits fall by 9.5% and fund returns drop by 7.8%.… Read more...

I-Hsuan Ethan Chiang and Xi Nancy Mo
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 681–715, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf047

This paper introduces a novel two-beta currency pricing model and uses it to analyze currency trading strategies. Literature on currency risk premiums has identified the predominant common factor in currency returns as the “dollar factor,” an equally weighted portfolio of floating exchange rate currencies.… Read more...

Stefano Lovo and Jacques Olivier
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 597–637, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf060

We model the decision of a Rating Agency (RA) whether to adopt an “issuer pays” or “investors pay” business model, with the aims to explain why Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings are predominantly paid by investors while credit ratings are paid by firms, and to analyze the implications of the choice for firms’ expected stock price and ESG performance.… Read more...

Amber Anand, Mehrdad Samadi, Jonathan Sokobin, and Kumar Venkataraman
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 459–488, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf049

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail trading in U.S. equity markets has grown substantially, prompting renewed academic interest in the trading practices and execution quality experienced by individual investors.… Read more...

Markus Leippold and Tingyu Yu
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 423–458, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf058

The need for green innovation has never been more urgent due to its central role in the net-zero transition. While patents are the most widely used measure of innovation in academic research, they are limited in that they do not fully capture the breadth of corporate innovation.… Read more...

Zoey Yiyuan Zhou, Douglas Almond
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 2, March 2026, Pages 537–570, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf066

Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) are often promoted as a win-win—delivering both climate mitigation and biodiversity protection through nature-based projects such as reforestation, avoided deforestation, and soil carbon enhancement.… Read more...

Jess Cornaggia, Yu-Hsuan (Jennifer) Liang, Peter Iliev, and Qiang Wang
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 391–421, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf051

The article Biodiversity and Local Asset Values investigates the relationship between biodiversity and real estate prices in the United States, providing the first national-scale benchmark of how ecological conditions are capitalized into local asset values.… Read more...

Franklin Allen, Patrick Behr, Riccardo Cosenza, and Eric Nowak
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 321–349, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf059

This study examines how investors react to firms’ engagement in biodiversity-related activities through voluntary carbon offsetting, focusing on forestry carbon projects worldwide.… Read more...

Alexandre Garel, Arthur Romec, Zacharias Sautner, and Alexander Wagner
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 231–272, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf069

Our paper develops, analyzes, and applies new firm-level measures of the extent to which a firm’s business activities depend on ecosystem services.… Read more...

Haoyu Gao, Yuting Huang, and Jingyuan Mo
Review of Finance, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2026, Pages 163–192, https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfaf067

In private debt markets, banks mitigate agency conflicts by actively screening and monitoring borrowers. In contrast, dispersed bondholders in public debt markets face significant information asymmetry and lack the incentives and capacity to do so, leaving investors vulnerable to issuer opportunism.… Read more...