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Pouyan Foroughi is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Schulich School of Business, York University. He received his Ph.D. in Finance from Boston College.
Prior to joining the Schulich School of Business, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at UNSW Business School. His main research interests are in the areas of empirical corporate finance, corporate governance, and the role of financial institutions in capital markets, and his research has won best paper awards at the WFA-CFAR conference, Western Finance Association (WFA), and Midwest Finance Association (MFA).
His teaching focuses on courses in corporate governance and corporate finance at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Honours
2019 Midwest Finance Association Outstanding Paper Award, MFA annual meeting
2017 WFA Cubist Systematic Strategies Ph.D. Candidate Award for Outstanding Research, WFA annual meeting
2016 Best Paper Award in Honor of Stuart I. Greenbaum, Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis
2016 Semifinalist for the Best Paper Award in Corporate Finance, FMA Annual Meeting
2016 Doctoral Student Consortium, FMA Annual Meeting
2016 Doctoral Student Travel Grant, AFA Annual Meeting
2012 Doctoral Fellowship, Boston College, Carroll School of Management
2008 Recognized as Exceptional Talent, Iran's National Elites Foundation and Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and, Technology
Recent Publications
Foroughi, P., Marcus, A., Nguyen, V. and Tehranian, H. (2021), "Peer Effects in Corporate Governance Practices: Evidence from Universal Demand Laws", Review of Financial Studies, 35(1), 132-167.
Abstract
Firms in the same networks tend to have similar corporate governance practices. However, it is difficult to disentangle peer effects, where governance practices propagate from one firm to another, from selection effects, where firms with similar governance preferences self-select into linked groups. Studying board-interlocked firms, we utilize a novel instrument based on the staggered adoption of universal demand laws across states to identify causal peer effects in firms’ decisions concerning CEO compensation, CEO duality, and anti-takeover provisions. Our results provide support for the existence of peer effect in the adoption of anti-takeover provisions. We find that the entrenchment index (E-Index) of a firm increases by 0.33 points for every point increase in the E-Index of firms in the same board interlock network. The impact of universal demand laws on the interlocking directors’ prior experience in passing these provisions is a likely mechanism explaining these effects.
Foroughi, P., Kang, N., Ozik, G. and Sadka, R. (2019), "Investor Protection and the Long-Run Performance of Activism", Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 54(1), 61-100.
Abstract
Using a parsimonious measure of investor protection constructed from fund organizational characteristics, this paper documents that companies targeted by activists with better investor protection structures outperform those targeted by those with poor investor protection structures by roughly 10% per year. The outperformance is observed only for active targets for which Schedule 13Ds are filed, not for passive Schedule 13G investments, indicating that the effect is not explained by a superior target-selection ability. The evidence suggests that funds with better investor protection achieve increased profitability and valuation ratio of their targets by reducing agency costs, improving corporate governance, and collaborating with other large institutional investors.
Courses Taught
Ph.D. Seminar in Corporate Finance (FINE 7200)
Introduction to Finance (FINE 2000), undergraduate level
Introduction to Finance (FINE 2000), graduate level
Managerial Finance (FINE 5200), graduate levelGrants
Project Title Role Award Amount Year Awarded Granting Agency Project TitleWhen do acquirers overpay for target firms? Evidence from M&A target valuation analyses RolePrincipal Investigator Award Amount$82,610.00 Year Awarded2021 Granting AgencySSHRC Insight Grant