Minjoo Kim

Firm Shocks and Retirement Savings

with Clemens Sialm and Hanjiang Zhang

We examine whether firms share risk with their workers, and whether employees revise their saving behavior in response to shocks experienced by their employers. Drawing on retirement contribution data, we show that both employee and employer contributions rise following improvements in firm performance and fall following increases in firm-level uncertainty. These findings suggest that firms transmit firm-specific shocks to their employees, and that workers adjust their long-term retirement savings in response to short-term employer-level financial shocks.

Selected presentations: University of Oregon Summer Finance Conference (2025); Western Finance Association Annual Meeting (2025); Financial Management Association Annual Meeting (2025); American Finance Association Annual Meeting (2026); UBC Summer Finance Conference (2026); University of Geneva, Seminar; University of St. Gallen, Finance Seminar; Texas A&M University, Seminar.

Who Bears Rising Commercial Property Insurance Costs?

with Prateek Mahajan and Zirui Wang

Supported by grants from Real Estate Research Institute and Brookings Institution.

Using novel property-level operating statements for multifamily properties, we document a large, widespread rise in insurance costs and study who bears them along three margins. Across locations, costs rise most where disaster risk, reinsurance exposure, and homeowners-insurance regulatory frictions are greatest. Between tenants and owners, rent increases initially passed nearly all the cost to tenants, but this response has weakened sharply; larger, more recent shocks are associated with lower profitability and transaction prices. Across owners, larger and lower-portfolio-risk owners obtain favorable insurance pricing, and high-risk assets increasingly move toward them. Repricing therefore shapes cash flows, asset values, and ownership patterns.

Selected presentations: American Economic Association Annual Meeting; Chicago Fed Conference (scheduled); American Risk and Insurance Association Annual Meeting; Harvard Climate and Insurance Gathering; USC Marshall Ph.D. Conference; Financial Intermediation Research Society Conference; Brookings Institution; Georgia Tech–Atlanta Fed Household Finance Conference, Young Scholar Poster; American Finance Association Annual Meeting, Ph.D. Poster Session; AREUEA–ASSA Conference; Southern Finance Association Annual Meeting; Boca Finance and Real Estate Conference; Financial Management Association Annual Meeting; UT Dallas Fall Finance Conference, Ph.D. Poster Session; MRS; Deakin University; UT San Antonio, Seminar; Baruch–JFQA Climate Finance Conference, Ph.D. Poster Session (Best Poster Award).