SMU Assistant Professor of Finance Gennaro Bernile recently worked with SMU colleagues, Assistant Professors of Finance Hu Jianfeng and Tang Yuehua, on a study that discovered a ‘leakage’ of embargoed macroeconomic announcements, whereby the market had reacted within the time span when announcements were made to journalists and the earliest time the announcements could be reported. He is also collaborating with colleagues in the United States and United Kingdom on a project that correlates a chief executive’s exposure to natural disasters in early childhood, with the propensity to take risks in adulthood. Assistant Prof Bernile is also looking to use publicly available commercial patent databases to study the impact of interactions between innovative firms.