I am an Assistant Professor in the Finance Area at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.
Before joining Duke, I obtained my PhD in Economics at Yale University in 2025.
My research interests are in Finance and Macroeconomics, with an emphasis on Financial Intermediation, Corporate Finance, and Monetary Policy.
You can reach me at francesco.beraldi@duke.edu.
You can find my CV here.
Working Papers
USC Marshall Trefftzs Award for Best Student Paper; The Brattle Group Ph.D. Candidate Awards For Outstanding Research; George Trimis Prize for Distinguished Dissertation in Economics; Best Paper Award, 2nd Italian Financial Economists Association Conference
Abstract
How do long-term relationships between banks and firms shape loan pricing and capital allocation? Using administrative data from Mexico's credit registry, I provide stark evidence for an insurance view of relationship lending. When firms repeatedly borrow from the same bank, the pass-through of their default risk to loan rates is nearly zero, and past risk assessments persistently influence credit terms. In contrast, switching to a new bank results in full risk pass-through, consistent with competitive market predictions. I rationalize this evidence in a structural model where banks compete for borrowers by offering optimal long-term contracts. Switching costs sustain commitment to banking relationships, enabling insurance. The estimated model replicates the observed pricing patterns and generates new predictions on when firms receive cheap funding and when they are tempted to switch, which I validate in the data. At the macro level, by strengthening relationships, switching costs enhance capital allocation and recover over 10 percent of welfare losses from financial frictions. However, when embedded in a New Keynesian framework, relationships dampen monetary and fiscal policy pass-through, as banks optimally absorb a portion of these policy shocks.
Abstract
We document systematic differences in how households spend their marginal and average dollars across sectors. Marginal expenditures are disproportionately directed toward sectors employing high-MPC workers, revealing a new redistribution channel that benefits high-MPC households during expansions. We build a Multi-Sector, Two-Agent, New Keynesian model with non-homothetic preferences consistent with these findings. The new redistribution channel increases the fiscal multiplier by 10 percent relative to an equivalent homothetic economy. The model also predicts steeper Phillips curves in sectors with high-MPC workers, a prediction we validate empirically. The resulting sectoral wage dynamics reinforce the redistribution towards high-MPC workers and increase the inflationary impact of fiscal shocks by up to 100 percent.
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of information heterogeneity in driving equity flows throughout the global financial cycle. In periods of heightened uncertainty, investors retrench from most foreign markets while maintaining investment in information-advantaged economies, particularly in the United States. We develop a multi-country model with endogenous information acquisition and heterogeneous learning costs, which generates three key predictions in uncertain times: (i) domestic investors become relatively better informed; (ii) aggregate foreign equity inflows fall where domestic agents hold an informational advantage; and (iii) investors reallocate toward markets they understand better. We validate these predictions using Consensus Economics forecasts and both aggregate and bilateral equity inflows. Higher uncertainty widens information asymmetries and leads to weaker foreign inflows where domestic precision improves, while capital shifts toward destinations that are easier to learn about.
Abstract
We analyze the pricing-out phenomenon in the U.S. residential housing market due to higher house prices associated with monetary easing. We set up a stylized general equilibrium model and show that although monetary easing decreases mortgage payments, it raises house prices, lowers housing affordability for first-time homebuyers, and increases housing wealth inequality between first-time and repeat homebuyers. We then use U.S. household-level data to quantify the effect of the house price change on housing affordability relative to that of the interest rate change. We find evidence of the pricing-out effect for all homebuyers; moreover, we find that the pricing-out effect is stronger for first-time homebuyers than for repeat homebuyers. The paper highlights the importance of accounting for general equilibrium effects and distributional implications of monetary policy while assessing housing affordability and calls for complementing monetary easing with targeted policy measures that can boost housing affordability, particularly for first-time and lower-income households.
Work in Progress
