Rabih Moussawi
Katherine and Richard Salisbury Endowed Professor
Professor of Finance
Villanova University
Department of Finance & Real Estate
Bartley Hall Rm 2051
800 E Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085 Résumé
Email: rabih.moussawi@villanova.edu
Phone: (610) 519-8544
Homepage: http://www.homepage.villanova.edu/rabih.moussawi
SSRN: http://www.ssrn.com/author=491241
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Mleyv4QAAAAJ&hl
Education:
Ph.D., Finance, The University of Texas at Dallas
MS, The University of Texas at Dallas
MBA, American University of Beirut
B.A. in Economics, with Distinction, American University of Beirut
Working Papers:
Operational Shorting and ETF Liquidity Provision, with Richard Evans, Michael Pagano, and John Sedunov. Revise-and-Resubmit at the Journal of Financial Economics. Featured in the Nasdaq #TradeTalks series on ETF Short Selling in the VSB co-hosted ETF conference with Nasdaq, Synapse 2018. Presented at the FINRA/Columbia University Market Structure Conference on Disruptive and Manipulative Activities, the European Finance Association 45th annual meeting, the Wharton School’s Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Research 2018 Conference “10th Anniversary of the Financial Crisis,” and the VSB-Nasdaq 2018 Synapse Conference on ETFs.
The Unintended Consequences of Investing for the Long Run: Evidence from Target Date Funds, with Massimo Massa and Andrei Simonov. Featured in Institutional Investors, and Kiplinger. Winner of the BlackRock Award for best paper in Funds Management at the 35th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference (AFBC) at the University of New South Wales Business School, December 2022. Presented at the 2022 Financial Intermediation Research Conference in Budapest, Hungary, at the 2021 Conference on Ageing and Financial Markets, Mannheim, Germany, and the Financial Management Associations meetings, Denver, Colorado.
Do ETFs Increase the Commonality in Liquidity of Underlying Stocks? with Vikas Agarwal, Paul Hanouna, and Christof Stahel. Featured in the podcast Do Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) Increase Volatility and Liquidity Risk? Villanova School of Business podcast series, 2018. Presented at the 28th Annual Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting, INQUIRE Annual Conference, Fourth Annual Global Quantitative Strategy Conference, CQA Trading Seminar, Northern Finance Association Annual Conference, the Third Smart Beta Summit, and the SEC’s Fifth Annual Conference on Financial Market Regulation.
Do Hedge Funds Really Avoid High Idiosyncratic Stocks? with Itzhak Ben-David and Denys Glushkov.
Publications:
The Role of Taxes in the Rise of ETFs, Review of Financial Studies (2025), Forthcoming, with Ke Shen and Raisa Velthuis. Presented at the Financial Management Association 2020 Annual Meeting, the American Finance Association 2021 Annual Meeting, 2022 University of North Carolina Tax Symposium, the Southern Finance Association 2022 Annual Meeting, and the 2024 Gabelli Funds Conference. Featured in Financial Times, ETF Trends, and Bloomberg.
Phantom of the Opera: ETF Shorting and Shareholder Voting, Management Science (2024), Forthcoming, with Richard Evans, Oguzhan Karakas, and Michael Young. Winner of the 4 Nations Cup in May 2019, and the best paper award of the European Financial Management Association in June 2019. Presented at American Finance Association 2020 Annual Meeting. Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, June 2021.
Competition for Attention in the ETF Space, Review of Financial Studies (2023), with Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, and Byungwook Kim. Presented at the American Economic Association 2021 Annual Meeting. Featured in Bloomberg, in Financial Times, in Wall Street Journal, and in the WSJ Intelligent Investor article.
The Granular Nature of Large Institutional Investors, Management Science (2021), with Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, and John Sedunov, lead article. NBER Working Paper No. 22247. Winner of the 2016 Research Excellence Award from the Center for Global Leadership at Villanova University. Presented at the NBER Summer Institute 2015 Annual Meeting, the American Finance Association 2016 Annual Meeting. Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, August 2016.
Institutional Investors and Bank Governance: An International Analysis of Bank Earnings Management, Journal of Corporate Finance (2021), with Steve Miller, Bin Wang, and Tina Yang.
Operating Lease Obligations and Corporate Cash Management, Journal of Corporate Finance (2021), with Robert Kieschnick and Douglas Cook.
A Project-Level Analysis of Value Creation in Firms, Financial Management (2020), with Jonathan Cohn and Umit Gurun. Presented at the American Finance Association 2013 meetings. Winner of the Editors’ Top Three Paper Award at Financial Management in Summer 2020.
An Improved Method to Predict Assignment of Stocks into Russell Indexes, Journal of Finance (2019), Replications and Corrigenda, web-only: https://afajof.org/comments-and-rejoinders/.
Operating leases, Operating leverage, Operational Inflexibility and Sticky Costs, Finance Research Letters (2019), with Robert Kieschnick and Douglas Cook.
Do ETFs Increase Volatility? Journal of Finance (2018), with Itzhak Ben-David and Francesco Franzoni, lead article. Presented at the Wharton School's Jacobs Levy 2014 Annual Conference, the American Finance Association 2013 meetings, Investment Company Institute 2013 conference, and NYSE Euronext-Paris Annual Hedge Fund 2012 Conference. NBER Working Paper No. 20071. Featured in the NBER Digest, September 2014.
Corporate Governance and Firm Survival, The Financial Review (2018), with Sinan Goktan and Robert Kieschnick. Winner of the Financial Review Editors' Choice Best Paper Award - 2018.
Firm Age, Corporate Governance, and Capital Structure Choices, Journal of Corporate Finance (2018), with Robert Kieschnick. Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, December 2017. Listed among the most downloaded articles from Journal of Corporate Finance in September 2018.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), The Annual Review of Financial Economics (2017), with Itzhak Ben-David and Francesco Franzoni. NBER Working Paper No. 22829. Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, Nov. 2016.
Governance Mechanisms and Effective Activism: Evidence from Shareholder Proposals on Poison Pills, Journal of Empirical Finance (2017), with Mireia Gine and John Sedunov.
Capital Structure and Mergers: Retrospective Evidence from a Natural Experiment, Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade (2017), forthcoming, with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Motivating Innovation in Newly Public Firms, Journal of Financial Economics (2014), with Nina Baranchuk and Robert Kieschnick. Featured in the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, February 2014.
Do Hedge Funds Manipulate Stock Prices? Journal of Finance (2013), with Itzhak Ben-David, Francesco Franzoni, and Augustin Landier.
Working Capital Management and Shareholder Wealth, Review of Finance (2013), with Robert Kieschnick and Mark LaPlante.
Hedge Fund Stock Trading in the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, Review of Financial Studies (2012), with Itzhak Ben-David and Francesco Franzoni, lead article.
Mutual Fund Performance when Parent Firms Simultaneously Manage Hedge Funds, Journal of Financial Intermediation (2010), with Gjergji Cici and Scott Gibson.
Do Incumbents' Mergers Influence Entrepreneurial Entry? An Evaluation, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice(2014), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Mergers and Telecommunications Infrastructure Deployment: A Retrospective Analysis, Competition and Regulation in Network Industries (2014), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Merger Waves and Firm Growth, Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics (2013), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Mergers and synergy: Lessons from contemporary telecommunications history, Telecommunications Policy(2012), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Mergers, Jobs and Wages in the United States Telecommunications Industry, Human Relations (2010), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.
Is the Efficiency Doctrine Valid? An Evaluation of US Local Exchange Telecommunications Company Mergers, Digital Policy, Regulation and Governance - info (2010), with Sumit Majumdar and Ulku Yaylacicegi.