Costello Research Market Efficiency

Boards with higher social capital enjoy more market freedom to engage in potentially risky strategic alliances — to the ultimate benefit of their firms.

Auditors with less common first names are more likely to deviate from auditing norms. But is their individualism an asset or a liability?

Since 2008, the meteoric rise of index funds has produced extreme consolidation of corporate ownership. So far, the outcomes for firms are a mixed bag.

We know from prior research that savvy investors respond to ESG data. But a pair of finance professors have discovered perhaps the most lucrative wrinkle in this strategy.

Artificial intelligence can perform peer firm selection—a key task for investors—at least as accurately as well-established alternative algorithms and human experts, according to research by Costello profs Long Chen and Yi Cao.

You can tell a lot about a hedge fund’s quality—and long-term performance—from the market climate in which it was launched.
Lin Sun, assistant professor of finance, recently published a paper in Review of Finance that compares hedge funds formed in high-demand, or “hot,” markets to those produced in a “cold” market climate.

Bo Hu, an assistant professor of finance at Mason, is developing new research methods to better capture the intricate, interlinked dynamics of financial markets.

Mason accounting professor, David Koo, goes back through history to trace how financial reporting requirements affect investors’ long- vs. short-term thinking.

Analysts and top executives are usually not on the same page –or even reading the same book.

A George Mason University professor is working on ways to measure one of the great intangibles of today’s companies: employee talent.