Portrait of Zirui Wang, a Finance Ph.D. student at UT Austin, pictured in November 2023. He is wearing a white striped shirt and glasses, and has a focused, confident expression. Zirui has black hair and is looking directly at the camera.

Zirui Wang

PhD Student in Finance at UT Austin

Welcome to my website! I am a fifth-year Finance Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. My research interests include Forensic Finance, Financial Regulations, Fintech, Real Estate, and Climate Finance.

Before coming to UT Austin, I earned a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, San Diego.

Research

1. Are Crypto Anti-Money Laundering Policies Effective?

with John M. Griffin and Kevin Mei

Presentations: SITE Financial Regulation (scheduled); NFA (scheduled); Ohio State University, Seminar

2. Canaries in the Coal Mine: Firm Response to Biodiversity Policy Risk

with Ricardo Peña and Shikhar Singla

3. The Rise in Insurance Costs for Commercial Properties: Causes, Effects on Rents, and the Role of Owners

with Minjoo Kim and Prateek Mahajan

Presentations: 2026 AREUEA-ASSA Conference (scheduled); SFA (scheduled); FMA (scheduled); UT Dallas Fall Finance Conference, PhD Poster Session (scheduled); MRS International Risk Conference; Deakin University Conference on Sustainable Finance; University of Texas at San Antonio, Seminar; 2025 Baruch-JFQA Climate Finance and Sustainability Conference, PhD Poster Session (won Best Poster Award)

A heat map of the percentage change in insurance costs between 2022 and 2023.

A heat map of the percentage change in insurance costs between 2022 and 2023.

This figure presents scatterplots of the annual average percentage change in commercial insurance costs versus homeowner insurance costs for three consecutive yearly intervals.

This figure presents scatterplots of the annual average percentage change in commercial insurance costs versus homeowner insurance costs for three consecutive yearly intervals.

This figure shows the effects of a 5 ppt increase in reinsurance costs across varying levels of risk score or expected annual losses (horizontal axis) given different levels of reinsurance exposure (different colored lines) on percentage change in in

This figure shows the effects of a 5 ppt increase in reinsurance costs across varying levels of risk score or expected annual losses (horizontal axis) given different levels of reinsurance exposure (different colored lines) on percentage change in insurance costs.

This figure examines the impact of rising insurance costs on rents and net operating income (NOI) for properties. It presents binscatter plots showing the relationship between insurance cost per unit and two outcomes: the left subpanel plots rents pe

This figure examines the impact of rising insurance costs on rents and net operating income (NOI) for properties. It presents binscatter plots showing the relationship between insurance cost per unit and two outcomes: the left subpanel plots rents per unit, and the right subpanel plots NOI per unit.

This figure examines how owner size impacts insurance costs and how this relationship varies across regions with different risk score. It includes property fixed effects and CBSA × year fixed effects.

This figure examines how owner size impacts insurance costs and how this relationship varies across regions with different risk score. It includes property fixed effects and CBSA × year fixed effects.

This figure examines how the relationship between the effect of a property’s risk score (horizontal axis) on insurance costs across different levels of average risk of its owner’s portfolio (different colored lines) varies across different owner size

This figure examines how the relationship between the effect of a property’s risk score (horizontal axis) on insurance costs across different levels of average risk of its owner’s portfolio (different colored lines) varies across different owner sizes. The left (right) subpanel shows the case when the property owner has 1,000 (50,000) units across the entire nation. Owner × year fixed effects are included in the regression.

Teaching

Instructor

  • FIN 367: Investment Management (Undergraduate)
    Summer 2024, UT Austin

Teaching Assistant

Select student comments (as TA):

  • "Zirui did great throughout the semester, definitely one of my top 5 TAs during my college career."

  • "Zirui was definitely the most organized/ helpful amongst all of the TAs."

  • "He was always available for questions and responded to my emails promptly."

  • "I just wanted to say thank you SO much for the extra time and help you poured into me these past few weeks. It really help me understand the material and prepare as best I could for the final. I appreciate your patience, your composure, and your understanding!"

  • "I appreciate all your efforts and hard work in helping us students learn more while preparing for exams. Your office hours for Exams 2 and 3 were a catalyst in understanding my mistakes and learning from them for the Final. I hope you can continue to be a TA and continue helping to foster learning in finance for students."

  • "I really appreciate Zirui working to put together the exam reviews, even if it was difficult to wrangle the students together. Those really helped especially when he walked through the problems step by step and tried to go deeper by connecting conceptual questions to calculations."

  • "Zirui and I debated some of my free–response answers on the first two exams. Although we sometimes had differing opinions, he was always receptive to what I was saying and looked to explain his perspective in the best way possible."

  • "really appreciated his help over email and office hours, even though he was super busy behind the scenes organizing the course. also really enjoyed his presentation of his own research!"

Reading Groups

  • Forensic Finance

    Wednesdays at 1:00 PM (2024)
    Moontower Cafe in Rowling Hall

    We have scheduled weekly paper presentations, which will continue until the end of the semester. Professor John M. Griffin and Sam Kruger will also join us! Looking forward to seeing you there!

    Weekly Schedule

  • Real Estate Finance

    Thursdays at 3:30 PM (2024)
    GSB 3.106

    We have one paper presentation each week till the end of the semester. Professor Sheridan Titman, Laura Starks, Jonathan Cohn, and Caitlin Gorback will join us as well!

    Weekly Schedule