Biography
Professor Liyan Yang is an internationally acclaimed scholar with expertise in financial markets, institutions, and behavioural finance. His research proposes a coherent framework – both theoretical and empirical – for understanding how investors interact in financial markets and their effect on regulatory policy and the overall welfare of the economy. His prolific research has appeared in Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and more.
Born in Binzhou, Shandong, China, Professor Yang earned both a BA and MA in economics from Shandong University. He then moved to the United States where he earned a PhD in economics at Cornell University. Since 2009, he has taught finance at the University of Toronto.
Professor Lang is the Peter L. Mitchelson/SIT Investment Associates Foundation Chair in Investment Strategy at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Additionally, he has received the 2015 Roger Martin Award for Excellence in Research, the 2016 JFQA William F. Sharpe Award for Scholarship in Financial Research, the 2016 Bank of Canada’s Governor’s Award, and the 2023 Bank of Canada Fellowship Award. He currently serves as an associate editor at Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Finance, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and Management Science.
Student Lecture: 29 February 2024
Market Feedback: Evidence from the Horse’s Mouth
How do financial markets affect the real economy? We surveyed all Chinese public firms in 2019 and 2022 to answer this question. The response rates were close to 100%. More than 90% of firms reported that they monitor the stock market for learning information to guide real investments and for accessing external financing.Faculty Lecture: 1 March 2024
To Dissimulate or Not to Dissimulate? Insider Trading When Anticipating Future Information
We analyze a dynamic model of a monopolistic insider who receives private information sequentially and faces a post-trading disclosure requirement. We show that characterizing the equilibrium in this trading game is isomorphic to solving a consumption-savings problem with a borrowing constraint. Analogous to the “consumption-smoothing’’ intuition in the consumption-savings literature, the insider in our trading game “smooths’’ his information usage over time given the dynamic of his private information. The insider would “dissimulate” his private information through mixed strategies if and only if sufficient information arrives early. Finally, we analyze the interpretation of mixed strategies and the value of commitment.