About

Jacopo Ponticelli is Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Associate Professor of Finance (with tenure) at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is an applied economist who primarily studies corporate finance, banking, and development economics, with a particular focus on firms in developing countries and the role played by financial markets and institutions in the process of economic development. His research has been published in top economics and finance journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. Starting in 2024, he has been serving as Editor at the Review of Finance. Before joining Kellogg, he served as an Assistant Professor of Finance and Cohen and Keenoy Scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Professor Ponticelli holds a PhD in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, where he also earned his MSc in Economics. His research interests include corporate finance, development economics, and applied microeconomics.

Research topics

• Business
• Economics
• Political Science
• Geography
• Macroeconomics
• Economy
• Law
• Market economy
• Finance
• Labour economics
• Economic growth

Selected publications

• Language Barriers, Technology Adoption and Productivity: Evidence from Agriculture in India

  The Review of Economics and Statistics · 2024-09-16 · 16 citations

  article

  Abstract We study the effect of language barriers on the ability of farmers to access information about agricultural technologies in rural areas of India. We use the introduction of government-sponsored call centers (Kisan Call Centers) which offer agricultural advice in the official language of each Indian state. For identification, we compare geographically contiguous areas that sit across state borders, and exploit differences in the language spoken by farmers and call center advisors. We document that language barriers limit the adoption of modern agricultural technologies – such as high-yielding variety seeds – and negatively affect crop yields.

  PublisherDOI

• Pricing the Priceless: The Financial Cost of Biodiversity Conservation

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-07-01 · 5 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  The pace of biodiversity loss requires drastic shifts in conservation efforts that carry substantial costs. We investigate how the financial market prices such conservation costs exploiting the "Green Shield Action, " a major regulatory initiative launched by the Chinese central government in 2017 to enforce biodiversity preservation rules in national nature reserves. We document that, while improving local biodiversity, the initiative led to a significant increase in bond yields for Chinese municipalities with national nature reserves. Evidence suggests that these effects are driven by expected increases in transition costs resulting from shutting down illegal economic activities within reserves and local public spending on biodiversity following the initiative. Overall, our results indicate that investors show little consideration beyond financial payoffs towards endeavors counteracting biodiversity loss.

  PublisherDOI

• Consumption smoothing or consumption binging? The effects of government-led consumer credit expansion in Brazil

  Journal of Financial Economics · 2024-04-05 · 8 citations

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Pricing the Priceless: The Financial Cost of Biodiversity Conservation

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Temperature and Local Industry Concentration

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Default and Bankruptcy Resolution in China

  Annual Review of Financial Economics · 2023-11-01 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access

  In this article, we review the literature on the recent growth of corporate debt in China and present stylized facts on the evolution of debt composition, nonperforming loans, defaults, and bankruptcy filings. We then describe the legal and political institutions that characterize the system for restructuring and liquidating financially distressed firms, including recent reforms of China's bankruptcy law. Finally, we discuss the main challenges faced by China in the implementation of these reforms, including frictions in judicial enforcement. We also propose potential avenues for future research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The labor effects of judicial bias in bankruptcy

  Journal of Financial Economics · 2023-09-28 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  We study the effect of judicial bias favoring firm continuation in bankruptcy on the labor market outcomes of employees by exploiting the random assignment of cases across courts in the State of São Paulo in Brazil. Employees of firms assigned to courts that favor firm continuation are more likely to stay with their employer, but they earn, on average, lower wages three to five years after bankruptcy. We discuss several potential mechanisms that can rationalize this result, and provide evidence that imperfect information about outside options in the local labor market and adjustment costs associated with job change play an important role.

  PublisherDOI

• Information Frictions and Take-up of Government Credit Programs

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Temperature and Local Industry Concentration

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Temperature, Adaptation, and Local Industry Concentration

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2023-08-01 · 30 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We use plant-level data from the U.S. Census of Manufacturers to study the short-and long-run effects of temperature on manufacturing activity.We find that high-temperature shocks significantly increase energy costs and lower productivity for small plants, while large plants are mostly unaffected.Commuting zones with higher increases in average temperatures between the 1980s and the 2010s experience a decline in the number of small plants, reallocation of labor from small to large plants, and higher local labor market concentration.Differences in costs per unit of energy, managerial skills, and access to finance contribute to explaining our results.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Margarita Tsoutsoura

  53 shared

• Spyridon Lagaras

  University of Pittsburgh

  44 shared

• Gabriel Garber

  Central Bank of Brazil

  44 shared

• Emanuele Colonnelli

  40 shared

• Mounu Prem

  Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance

  39 shared

• Paula Bustos

  38 shared

• Atif Mian

  Princeton University

  37 shared

• Amir Sufi

  34 shared

Awards & honors

• Sidney J. Levy Teaching Award for teaching excellence in ele…
• Italian Financial Economist Association Conference Best Disc…
• Montias Prize for best article published in the Journal of C…
• 2022 Pagano and Zechner Prize for best non-investment paper…
• Central Bank of Brazil - Best Working Paper Award in Banking…