Associate Professor of Finance
Education
Ph.D., Duke University
M.A., Duke University
M.A., The University of Mississippi
M.E., Tongji University
B.E., Tongji University
Professor Chen joined the faculty in 2008 after earning his Ph.D. from Duke University. He has a research interest in the areas of corporate governance and ESG-related issues, and has published in journals such as Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking & Finance, Financial Management, and Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility.
Corporate Finance/Governance, Board of Directors, Credit Risk, Executive Compensation, Risk Taking Incentives, Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), Climate Change Policies
Corporate Finance; Financial Management; Risk Management; Fixed Income Analysis; Financial Statement Analysis.
Refereed Journal Articles
Chen, D. (2021). Extreme Weather and Ratings on Corporate Climate Mitigation Policies. Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility. 30(4), 570-587.
Research Report
Zhang, T., Xiu, L., Chen, D., & Guo, G. C. (2024). Maryland Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) Program Phase II: Analysis of Expected Program Claims and Administration Experience. Jacob France institute & Maryland Legislative Library & Maryland Department of Labor.
Zhang, T., Xiu, L., Chen, D., & Guo, G. (2023). Maryland Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) Program: Phase II Cost Analysis Report. Jacob France institute & Maryland Legislative Library & Maryland Department of Labor.
Zhang, T., Xiu, L., Chen, D., Guo, G. C., & . (2022). Maryland Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI): Five Independent and Inter-related Analytical Studies. Maryland Legislative Library & Maryland Department of Labor.
Chen, D. UB RED Talks, "Personal experiences and corporate climate mitigation policy ratings," University of Baltimore, University of Baltimore. (2020).
"Extreme Weather and Corporate Carbon Emissions" (On-Going)
Using the disclosed carbon emissions by large emitters in the United States as required by EPA based on the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), I analyze the impact of extreme weather events (EWEs) at the headquarters of the firms in the U.S. on their carbon emissions.
"Majority Voting and Bondholder Wealth" (On-Going)
We examine the impact of majority voting on abnormal bond returns by utilizing the regression discontinuity design (RDD) on the passage/failure of shareholder proposals on majority voting. The fundamental idea is that if majority voting helps align the interest of shareholders with the board of directors, it may not be viewed favorably by bondholders especially if the default risk of the firm is high, due to the agency cost of debt.
"The Advisory and Monitoring Functions of Corporate Boards" (On-Going)
We examine the advisory function of independent executives (IEs), independent directors who are also serving as executives of other public firms in the BoardEx database, on the receiver firms' corporate policies, by testing the potential "convergence" of these corporate policies between the receiver and the sender firms after these executives have joined the receiver firms to become independent directors. To examine the potential conflict of the advisory and monitoring roles served by independent directors, we track the committee service roles of these IEs, based on the notion that if such a conflict exists, IEs could either refrain from serving at traditionally monitoring-focused committees including compensation and nomination/governance committees or, if they do serve on these committees, may not serve as diligent a role in disciplining underperforming CEOs as in the case of not serving on these committees.