November 2014
WILLIAM MULLINS
CONTACT
RH Smith School of Business
University of Maryland
4420 Van Munching Hall
College Park, MD 20742
Email: wmullins@rhsmith.umd.edu
Academic webpage
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
2014–
RH Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Assistant Professor of Finance
2006– 2008
Ministry of Finance, Chile
Financial Policy Advisor to Andrés Velasco, Minister of Finance, and L.F.
Céspedes, Chief Economist
EDUCATION
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management
PhD in Financial Economics, 2014
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
MSc Economics, 2005
- University of Oxford
BA (1st Class) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics
PUBLICATIONS
How do CEOs see their roles? Management Philosophies and Styles in Family and nonfamily firms (with Antoinette Schoar)
Journal of Financial Economics (Forthcoming)
Using a survey of 800 CEOs in 22 emerging economies we show that CEOs’ management
styles and philosophies vary with the ownership and governance structure of their firms.
Founders and CEOs of firms with greater family involvement display a greater stakeholder focus
and feel more accountable to employees and banks than to shareholders. They also have a more
hierarchical management approach, and see their role as maintaining the status quo rather than
bringing about change. In contrast, CEOs of non-family firms emphasize shareholder-valuemaximization. Finally, firm-level variation in ownership is as important in explaining
management philosophies as cross-country or industry-level differences.
November 2014
WORKING PAPERS
The Governance Impact of Indexing: Evidence from Regression Discontinuity
To examine the effect of institutional ownership on the governance dynamics of firms and
corporate outcomes, I exploit an exogenous change in indexer ownership generated by the
mechanical reconstitution of the Russell equity indices. Following reconstitution, I show that
firms that are just included in the Russell 1000 index have higher institutional ownership (IO)
levels and concentration than those just included in the Russell 2000 index of smaller firms. This
is composed of both a change in indexers and closet index fund ownership, and a change in
active IO, suggesting a complementarity between different types of institutional investors.
Firms just included in the Russell 1000 substantially increase the performance sensitivity of
their CEO's pay, and have a much higher likelihood of CEO turnover within two years. These
firms also display greater resistance to management proposals at shareholder meetings and lower
rate of failure for shareholder proposals. Finally, they have materially lower capital expenditures,
and make fewer cash and diversifying acquisitions. Overall, these results are consistent with a
significant impact of institutional preferences on corporate outcomes.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Credit Guarantee Schemes for SMEs: Micro Evidence (with Patricio Toro)
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
-
MIT Sloan Arnoldo Hax Fellow 2012
MIT Sloan Bennett W. Golub Graduate Fellow 2009-2014
MIT DuPont Presidential Fellow 2008-9
P. Universidad Católica de Chile: Academic Excellence Prize 2005
Oxford University academic prizes: Open Exhibition; E.T. Warner Prize
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Referee for The Journal of Finance, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Chilean
FONDECYT Program.
PHD ADVISORS
Antoinette Schoar (Chair), Nittai Bergman, Xavier Giroud, Stephen A. Ross