Assistant Professor of Finance and Michael R. and Mary Kay Hallman Faculty FellowStephen M. Ross School of Business, University of MichiganFaculty Affiliate, Erb Institute
His research is published or forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and Nature Climate Change, and has been recognized with the Moskowitz Prize for socially responsible investing research, the Arnold M. and Linda T. Jacob Faculty Fellow Award, and a 2027 NTT Research Fellowship from Ross’s Mitsui Life Financial Research Center.
He was previously on the finance faculty at Rice, holds a PhD in Finance from Columbia Business School, and worked at BlackRock and Bloomberg before academia.
He studies financial markets and their real effects, and how contracts and incentives shape them.
−13%
Toxic chemical releases at targeted firms fall 13% after environmental activist campaigns.
S. Lakshmi Naaraayanan, Kunal Sachdeva, Varun Sharma
Review of Financial Studies, forthcoming (published online August 2026)
Regulated firms outsource power and shift product mix, reducing product variety.
Rebecca De Simone, S. Lakshmi Naaraayanan, Kunal Sachdeva
Working paper, 2026
Firms fully replace lost targeted-bank credit through non-targeted banks, leaving total debt unchanged.
Kunal Sachdeva, André F. Silva, Pablo Slutzky, Billy Xu
Journal of Financial Economics 172 (2025): 104133
Higher capital requirements cut lending at weakly governed banks but raise it at strongly governed banks.
Joshua Bosshardt, Ali Kakhbod, Kunal Sachdeva
Working paper, 2023
60%
60% of emissions disclosures by 276 large U.S. corporations are later restated, with understatements outweighing overstatements two to one.
Lauren Cohen, Ethan Rouen, Kunal Sachdeva
Nature Climate Change 16 (2026): 33–36
ESG reports carry unique material information beyond 10-K filings, linked to lower downside risk.
Ethan Rouen, Kunal Sachdeva, Aaron Yoon
Working paper, 2026
+12%
Male-equivalent patents receive 12% more citations than otherwise identical female-invented patents.
Yael Hochberg, Ali Kakhbod, Peiyao Li, Kunal Sachdeva
Journal of Financial Economics 183 (2026): 104307; NBER Working Paper No. 31592
When vote outcomes are uncertain, ESG funds tilt toward returns over environmental and social goals.
Tao Li, S. Lakshmi Naaraayanan, Kunal Sachdeva
Working paper, 2023
Hedge funds with more manager inside investment deliver higher performance.
Arpit Gupta, Kunal Sachdeva
Management Science 71.4 (2024): 3357–3383
4.8 yrs
Respondents leave the labour force 4.8 years later than expected, costing 4% of wealth at retirement.
Byeong-Je An, Kunal Sachdeva
Working paper, 2024
Survival probability over time is higher for individuals with life-settlement access than for those without.
Kunal Sachdeva
Working paper, 2020