Title: Nature Transition Risk

Speaker: Prof. Haoyu Gao, Wu Yuzhang Distinguished Professor, Renmin University of China

Host: Xiangwei Wan, Associate Professor, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Time: 13:30–15:00, Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Venue: Room 306, Haoran Building, Antai College, Xuhui Campus, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Brief introduction of the content: 

Regulatory discretion in conservation policy creates a distinct and underexplored source of nature transition risk. Exploiting the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming, a policy shock that heightens political commitment to biodiversity protection, we find that firms with greater nature-related subsidy exposure, signaling susceptibility to discretionary government mobilization, exhibit significant negative cumulative abnormal returns around the event. The decline is driven by an expanded risk premium (discount rate channel) rather than revised cash-flow expectations. The effects are stronger among firms in more fiscally constrained and conservation-pressured regions. While affected firms increase biodiversity disclosures, investors price the operational disruption of conservation mandates without expecting earnings from subsidy-linked ties, suggesting that institutional discretion induce unhedged transition risks if underlying regulatory frictions remain unaddressed.

Speaker's profile:

Haoyu Gao is an Extraordinarily Appointed Wu Yuzhang Distinguished Professor and doctoral supervisor at Renmin University of China. He serves as Deputy Director of the Department of Monetary Finance at the School of Finance and Deputy Director of the China Banking Research Center. Professor Gao is a recipient of the National Excellent Young Scientists Fund and was selected for the 5th "Young Talent Support Program" of the China Association for Science and Technology.

 His research interests mainly focus on banking and financial intermediation, financial risk management, sustainable finance, and China’s capital market. His representative academic achievements have been published in leading domestic and international journals in the field of finance and management, including The Journal of Finance (JF), The Review of Financial Studies (RFS), Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA), Review of Finance (ROF), Journal of Management Sciences in China, Management World, Journal of Financial Research, and The Journal of World Economy.

He is invited to serve as Associate Editor of Finance at Management Science, and also acts as Associate Editor for several other authoritative journals at home and abroad, including Corporate Governance: An International Review, International Journal of Finance, and Journal of Systems Science and Mathematical Sciences. He is also a Council Member of the Systems Engineering Society of China, Deputy Director of the Financial Systems Engineering Professional Committee, Executive Director of the China Modern Financial Association, a think tank expert of the Financial Committee of the CPC Hebei Provincial Committee, and academic supervisor for the postdoctoral programs at the Head Office of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Head Office of Hua Xia Bank.

Welcome all !