Varun Sharma

Assistant Professor of Finance, Kelley School of Business,  Indiana University (2023-)

Assistant Professor of Finance, Nanyang Business School, NTU, Singapore (2022-2023)

PhD in Finance, London Business School (LBS), London (2016-2022)

Research Areas:  Financial Intermediation; Empirical Asset Pricing; Climate Finance; Insurance

Before PhD, I worked as a Senior Manager/Associate Director with PwC (London). I have ten years of management consulting experience, focusing on pricing, valuation, and risk management models of banks and financial services firms. I am also an independent director on the board of Ksolves India Limited, a publicly listed (National Stock Exchange) technology firm. I hold a Master in Finance degree from LBS and MBA from IIT Delhi. I was also a CFA charter holder. 

vs12@iu.edu                    CV                    SSRN                    Google Scholar                    Official Profile 

1. The Product Market Effects of Index Inclusion (Job Market Paper)

Revise & Resubmit, The Review of Financial Studies

Invited by the Review of Financial Studies for dual submission (Texas Finance Festival)

AQR Fellowship Award for Research Excellence, 2021 (Finalist)

Funding support from Wheeler Institute    

Conferences and Seminars: Northern Finance Association 2021 (Ph.D. Session);  International Risk Management Conference 2021;  Nova Ph.D. Final Countdown; Transatlantic Doctoral Conference 2021; Inter-Finance Ph.D. Seminar; Indiana; Nanyang Technological University (NTU); Maryland; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST); Georgetown; McGill; Johns Hopkins; Georgia Tech; Tulane; National University of Singapore (NUS); Singapore Management University (SMU); Hong Kong University (HKU); Judge Business School; Warwick Business School; Queen Mary University of London; BI Norway; Frankfurt School of Finance & Management; and London Business School (LBS);  

2. The Real Effects of Environmental Activist Investing

Co-author:  S Lakshmi Naaraayanan (LBS) and Kunal Sachdeva (Rice University)

Revise & Resubmit, The Review of Financial Studies

International Center for Pension Management Research Award, 2022

Best Paper, European Investment Forum (Cambridge), 2021

Moskowitz Prize for Best Paper in Sustainable and Responsible Investing, 2020

Best Paper in Corporate Finance and Financial Institutions at the FMA European Conference, 2021

Recipient of Research Grant from the Pacific Center for Asset Management (PCAM), UC San Diego

Semi-finalist in the John L. Weinberg/IRRCI Research Award

Semi-finalist, Best Paper, FMA 

Media Coverage: Financial Times; ProMarket (Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business); International Pensions Europe

Conferences:  AFA (American Finance Association) 2022; FIRS 2022; SFS Cavalcade 2021; Weinberg Center - Corporate Governance Symposium 2021; Political Economy of Finance Conference 2020 (Chicago Booth); European Finance Association (EFA) 2020; 2021 European Investment Forums; FMA Annual Meeting 2020; UBC Winter Finance Conference 2020; Texas Finance Festival 2020; World Symposium on Investment Research 2020;  ADBI-JBF-SMU Joint Conference on Green and Ethical Finance; Annual Mid-Atlantic Research Conference (MARC); FMA Europe; European Winter Finance Conference; Mid-west Finance Association 2021; ISB Summer Conference 2020; Northern Finance Association 2020; GRASFI 2020 (Columbia); Wellington Finance Summit 2018; Finance on Cloud 2021; Asia-Pacific Corporate Finance Online Workshop 2021;  IRMC 2020; 

3. Institutional Corporate Bond Demand

Co-author:  Lorenzo Bretscher (LBS), Lukas Schmid (USC Marshall), and Ishita Sen (Harvard Business School)

Revise & Resubmit, The Review of Financial Studies

Invited by the Review of Financial Studies for dual submission (Texas Finance Festival)

Recipient of Research Grant from INQUIRE Europe

Conferences:  NBER Long-Term Asset Management 2022;  SFS Cavalcade 2022;  FIRS 2022;  AFA  (American Finance Association) 2022;  European Finance Association (EFA) 2022; CICF 2021;  MFA 2022;  AIM Investment Conference (University of Texas at Austin) 2022;  ISB Summer Research Conference 2022;

4. (Almost) 200 Years of News-Based Economic Sentiment

Co-author: Jules H. van Binsbergen (Wharton), Svetlana Bryzgalova (LBS), and Mayukh Mukhopadhyay (LBS) 

Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Financial Economics 

Invited by the Journal of Financial Economics for dual submission (FRA)

Media Coverage: Financial Times

Conferences:  WFA (Western Finance Association) 2024*; ABFER 2024*; MFA 2024; Macro Finance Society 22nd Workshop; Georgia State FinTech Conference; Adam Smith Workshop Spring 2023; Eastern Finance Association 2023; Fifth International Workshop in Financial Econometrics;

5. Investments that Make our Homes Greener: The Role of Regulation 

Co-author: Nuno Clara (Duke), João F. Cocco (LBS), and S Lakshmi Naaraayanan (LBS) 

Media Coverage:  VoxEU

Conferences:  ABFER 2024*; Georgetown-Clarke Symposium on Global Real Estate; FIRS 2023; SFS Cavalcade 2023; NBER Summer Institute (Real Estate); AREUEA (New Orleans); University of Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Conference;  UNC Real Estate Research Symposium;  OCC Symposium on Climate Risk in Banking and Finance; KWC/SNEE Conference on Sustainable Finance; HEC-HKUST Sustainable Finance Seminar; FMA (Atlanta); Urban Economics Association; Conference on Financial Economics and Accounting 

6. Internal Models, Make Believe Prices, and Bond Market Cornering

Co-author: Ishita Sen (Harvard Business School)

Conferences:  WFA (Western Finance Association) 2021; EFA (European Finance Association) 2021; FIRS 2021; NBER Insurance Workshop; WFA-CFAR Conference (Washington University in St. Louis); Eastern Finance Association 2021; SGF Conference; AFFECT; TADC; Southern Finance Association 2021*; Northern Finance Association 2021;  FMA; Harvard-MIT Financial Economics Workshop; EFMA 2021;  AFA 2020 (Poster Session);  

7. Is Firm-Level Political Exposure Priced?

Co-author: Evgenii Gorbatikov (LBS), Laurence van Lent (Frankfurt), Narayan Naik (LBS), and Ahmed Tahoun (LBS)

Works in Progress

Political Economy of Climate Change (video)

Recipient of Research Grant from Wheeler Institute 

How do Managers Learn about their Skills 

Co-author: Vikas Agarwal (GSU) and Narayan Naik (LBS)

* Scheduled