Hello, I’m Meichen Qian. Welcome to my personal site! I am a fifth-year PhD candidate in Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Before starting my PhD, I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from the University of Hong Kong in 2021.
I’m on the 2025-2026 job market.
Research interests: asset pricing, financial intermediation, market microstructure, sustainable finance
Working Papers
Bridging Segmented Markets: The Role of Active Investors (Job Market Paper)
Abstract
The segmentation between stock and corporate bond markets has long been documented. This paper investigates how active mutual fund and ETF investors bridge this segmentation by facilitating information transmission across the two markets. I show that active investors have within-market informational advantages: changes in active holdings and cross-asset ownership predict future returns, whereas passive flows do not. Across markets, active investors enhance cross-market efficiency by accelerating the incorporation of stock-market information into bond returns, as reflected in the weakened predictability of future bond returns from past stock returns. As complementary evidence, a higher active ratio in ownership and a higher active ratio in cross-asset holdings are associated with stronger return comovement between a firm’s stock and bond, reflecting greater integration between the two markets. I identify two channels through which this effect operates: (1) information coordination through cross-asset ownership, which is stronger among investment-grade firms where baseline segmentation is greater and the benefits of information sharing are larger; and (2) mitigation of selling frictions, which is more pronounced following negative news when short-sale constraints impede price discovery. These results highlight the importance of active management in enhancing cross-asset price discovery and market integration.Heterogeneous Return Predictability from Order Flow
Abstract
This study investigates how information and inventory effect jointly determine return predictability from retail and total order flow. I build a model that combines the asymmetric information impact of investors with the inventory effect of market makers to analyze how lagged order flow can forecast future returns. The model illustrates that the difference in predictive power between retail and total order flow can be attributed to the varying informativeness of different investor groups. The focus of this paper is to empirically test how market makers' varying inventory capacity affect this predictive power. While previous literature has theoretically demonstrated that the predictive power of past returns is positive and increases with a market maker's risk aversion, such a monotonic relationship requires specific model parameter constraints and lacks empirical support. My framework suggests that when predictibility remains positive, the magnitude increases when the market maker has lower risk bearing capacity, but this monotonic relationship is only within a certain range. Specifically, when the market maker is extremely unwilling to provide liquidity, return predictability can turn negative, as the price impact channel dominates. I empirically test this theoretical prediction using data from stocks in the banking sector and the results align with the model. The rationale is that these stocks exhibit the strongest positive correlation with the market maker's business, and therefore they have lowest inventory capacity for these stocks. This finding is supported by the observation that negative predictability becomes more pronounced in times of higher market volatility or for stocks with lower liquidity.Environmental Partisanship in the Crowdfunding of Technology (with Vesa Pursiainen and Dragon Tang)
Abstract
We study the implications of environmental commitments by technology entrepreneurs in their reward-based crowdfunding campaigns. Technology projects with public environmental commitments are significantly less likely to receive funding, but this varies depending on local climate opinions and political views. Backers in areas less concerned about climate change and more Republican areas are significantly less likely to fund campaigns with environmental commitments. The negative relationship between campaign outcomes and environmental commitments is stronger in cases where such commitments might be assumed more costly, suggesting that at least some backers interpret there to be a trade-off between sustainability and other product features.Teaching
MBA: Arbitrage Investing
- TA for Mark Mitchell, Spring 2025
- Location: Chicago
Executive MBA: Corporate Finance
- TA for Pietro Veronesi, Spring 2024
- Location: Hong Kong
- TA Evaluation: 4.75/5 (detailed report available upon request)
PhD: Corporate Finance Theory
- TA for Zhiguo He and Douglas Diamond (Fall 2023)
- Location: Chicago
Undergrad: Investment
- TA for Anthony Zhang (Winter 2023 and Spring 2024)
- Location: Chicago
Contact
[First] dot [Last] at chicagobooth.edu