Bo Li

Welcome to my website!

I am a Postdoctoral Fellow in Finance at Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology. I obtained a Ph.D. in Finance at Arizona State University.

Profile: Link to my CV

Email: bli96@gatech.edu

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/boli-finance

https://bolifinance.github.io

https://www.boli-finance.com （backup）

Research Interest:

Primary: Real Estate Finance, Household Finance, and Banking

Secondary: Business Cycle and Inequality

Georgia Tech Advisor:

Sudheer Chava. Website. Email: sudheer.chava@scheller.gatech.edu

ASU Dissertation Committee:

Laura Lindsey (chair). Website. Email: laura.lindsey@asu.edu

Oliver Boguth. Website. Email: oliver.boguth@asu.edu

Rawley Heimer. Website. Email: rawley.heimer@asu.edu

PhD Dissertation Chapter 1 (JMP): Credit Expansion and Housing Cycle (SSRN Link)

During the 1999-2009 U.S. housing cycle, two opposing empirical facts present a puzzle: the correlation between income growth and mortgage growth is negative across ZIP codes within metropolitan areas (some argue for the "credit expansion” view) but positive across metropolitan areas (others argue for the "speculation" view). First, I show that the cross-metropolitan phenomenon, in fact, supports the "credit expansion" view: by an instrumental variable approach, I show that net export growth across metropolitan areas causes income growth and credit expansion in mortgage growth, which eventually leads to the housing cycle. I also design five tests to show that credit expansion rather than speculation plays the dominant role. Second, I build a simple model to illustrate how credit expansion can reconcile the two seemingly opposing empirical facts. Third, my model generates new predictions of "double differences": the differential stronger boom and bust cycle in mortgages (and house prices) in the low-income ZIP codes than in the high-income ZIP codes within the same metropolitan area is more pronounced in the high net-export-growth metropolitan areas. I provide empirical causal evidence for these predictions, further supporting the "credit expansion" view.

Presentation: ASU PhD Seminar, ASU Browbag, 2024 Eastern Finance Association, Georgia Tech, 2024 Econ Graduate Students' Conference at WashU

Bo Li

Research Interest:

PhD Dissertation Chapter 1 (JMP): Credit Expansion and Housing Cycle (SSRN Link)

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