Linxiang Ma is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Finance at the University of Melbourne. His research interests are empirical corporate finance, economic and financial history, and political economy. His studies seek to understand how various frictions and mechanisms shape corporate decisions and performances, ranging from politics and institutions to beliefs and behaviours.
He is on the job market for 2022/2023 and will be available for interviews at FMA (Atlanta), ASSA (New Orleans), and remotely. His CV can be accessed here.
His job market paper shows that political ideology was critical in shaping China's privatization wave around 2000. Constructing a novel ideology measure, he documents that a provincial governor with above-median communism belief privatized 2.7% fewer state-owned enterprises each year than his below-median-belief colleague. His work provides novel evidence that ideology can motivate financial decisions in authoritarian regimes and substantially impact corporate ownership structure.
For more information, please visit his personal website.