About

Pedro Matos holds the James A. and Stacy Cooper Bicentennial Professorship and is a professor of business administration (Finance) at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. His research focuses on the growing importance of institutional investors in financial markets worldwide. His work has been published in top academic journals and featured in the press, including The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times, and Bloomberg, and has been cited by regulators such as the U.S. SEC and the European Commission. Matos is a research associate at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), Vice-Chair of the UN-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Academic Network Advisory Committee, and has received numerous research grants and awards. At Darden, he has published numerous case studies and has won awards for excellence in course material development and research publication. His academic background includes a B.A. in economics from Nova University in Lisbon and a Ph.D. in finance from INSEAD. Prior to his Ph.D., he worked with the Portuguese Ministry of Finance and consulted for the World Bank.

Research topics

• Business
• Political Science
• Accounting
• Law
• Finance

Selected publications

• Do Institutional Investors Stabilize Equity Markets in Crisis Periods? Evidence from COVID-19

  Management Science · 2025-02-05 · 30 citations

  article

  During the COVID-19 stock market crash, U.S. stocks with higher institutional ownership (IO) performed worse than those with lower IO. By studying firm-level changes, we identify two mechanisms behind this effect: a sudden downscaling of institutional capital in the equity market and a collective attempt by institutions to reposition their equity portfolios toward more COVID-resilient stocks. The stock price effects of their “portfolio downscaling” trades quickly reversed in the market’s recovery phase, whereas those of their “portfolio repositioning” trades lingered. The institutional rush for firm resilience also caused price pressures, with retail investors providing liquidity to stocks sold by institutional investors, both during the crisis and afterward. Overall, our results indicate that when a tail risk is realized, institutional investors amplify price crashes. This paper was accepted by Lukas Schmid, finance. Funding: S. Glossner and P. Matos acknowledge financial support from the Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management at the Darden School of Business. S. Ramelli and A. F. Wagner acknowledge financial support from the University of Zurich Research Priority Program “Financial Market Regulation.” Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.03411 .

  PublisherDOI

• JUST Capital

  Darden Business Publishing Cases · 2024-04-23

  article

  The case examines the development and launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on JUST Capital's socially responsible corporate ranking methodologies. The case provides a market overview of Environment, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) and socially responsible investing (SRI), what has driven growth in those areas worldwide, and several best-practice investment approaches. Following the overview, the case describes the founding and development of JUST Capital, explores JUST Capital's ranking methodologies, and presents the decision point faced by the CEO: requisite selection of one of three strategies in order for JUST Capital to generate “self-sustaining” revenue.

  PublisherDOI

• The Green Transition: Evidence from Corporate Green Revenues<br>

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 17 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Hiding in Plain Sight: the Global Implications of Manager Disclosure

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Decarbonizing Institutional Investor Portfolios

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Do Responsible Investors Invest Responsibly?

  Review of Finance · 2022 · 208 citations

  • Business
  • Accounting
  • Finance

  Abstract We study whether institutional investors that sign the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a commitment to responsible investing, exhibit better portfolio-level environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores. Signatories outside of the USA have superior ESG scores than nonsignatories, but US signatories have at best similar ESG ratings, and worse scores if they have underperformed recently, are retail-client facing, and joined the PRI late. US signatories do not improve the ESG scores of portfolio companies after investing in them. Commercial motives, uncertainty about fiduciary duties, and lower ESG market maturity explain why US-domiciled PRI signatories do not follow through on their responsible investment commitments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Leviathan Inc. and Corporate Environmental Engagement

  Management Science · 2021-09-09 · 181 citations

  articleSenior author

  In a 2010 special report, The Economist magazine termed the resurgence of state-owned, publicly listed enterprises “Leviathan Inc.” and criticized the poor governance and low efficiency of these firms. We compile a new comprehensive data set of state ownership of publicly listed firms in 44 countries over the period of 2004–2017 and show that state-owned enterprises are more responsive to environmental issues. The effect is more pronounced in economies lacking energy security and strong environmental regulation, and among firms with more local operations and higher domestic government ownership. We find a similar effect on corporate social engagement but not on governance quality. These results suggest a different role for “Leviathan Inc.,” especially in dealing with environmental externalities. This paper was accepted by Colin Mayer, Special Section of Management Science on Business and Climate Change. Funding: H. Liang acknowledges the DBS Sustainability Fellowship from Singapore Management University. P.-H. Hsu acknowledges the fellowship from the Batten Institute of Darden School of Business of the University of Virginia and the financial support from the E.SUN Academic Award and Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education in Taiwan [Grants MOST108-2410-H-007-099-MY2, MOST109-2628-H-007-001-MY4, MOST109-2634-F-002-045, MOE109J0321Q2, and MOE109L900202]. P. Matos acknowledges financial support from the Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.4064 .

  PublisherDOI

• Hiding in Plain Sight: The Global Implications of Manager Disclosure

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• How Global Is Your Mutual Fund? International Diversification from Multinationals

  Review of Financial Studies · 2021-09-30 · 34 citations

  article

  Abstract We show that mutual funds worldwide provide substantial international exposure through their domestic holdings of multinationals. The international exposure of domestic funds increases, on average, by 32 percentage points when we consider international corporate diversification. We find that funds with higher indirect international exposure perform better in both the cross-section and the time series. This effect is primarily driven by the fund managers’ ability to invest in multinationals, rather than the performance of those multinationals. Our findings support the hypothesis that international diversification from multinationals reduces the transaction and information costs of investing abroad. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

  PublisherDOI

• Where Do Institutional Investors Seek Shelter when Disaster Strikes? Evidence from COVID-19

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020-01-01 · 72 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Miguel A. Ferreira

  European Corporate Governance Institute

  243 shared

• Pedro Pires

  130 shared

• Jan Bena

  University of British Columbia

  122 shared

• Cláudia Custódio

  Imperial College London

  25 shared

• Philipp Krueger

  University of Geneva

  24 shared

• Massimo Massa

  18 shared

• Simon Gloßner

  Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

  15 shared

• Daniel Carvalho

  Banco de Portugal

  11 shared

Education

• PhD, Finance

  Institut européen d'administration des affaires

  2005

Awards & honors

• Wells Fargo Award for Excellence in Course Material Developm…
• Wells Fargo Award for Outstanding Research Publication
• Darden Multiyear Publications Award
• Golden Apple teaching award (University of Southern Californ…