Gonzalo Maturana 
Associate Professor of Finance | Emory University, Goizueta Business School
Atlanta, GA, UNITED STATES
Spotlight
Biography
Gonzalo Maturana joined the Goizueta Business School in 2015 after completing his PhD in Finance at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.
Professor Maturana’s primary research focuses are in corporate finance, household finance, real estate finance, and conflicts of interest. His research has been published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and Management Science. His research has also appeared in nonacademic outlets such as Bloomberg, MarketWatch, and the CFA digest. Among his awards are the Michael J. Brennan Award for best paper in the Review of Financial Studies in 2017 and the Rising Scholar Award for best paper by a young researcher in the Review of Financial Studies in 2020.
Prior to joining the faculty at Goizueta, Professor Maturana held positions at the University of Chile and IM Trust, a Chilean investment bank. At Goizueta, he has taught Corporate Finance (FIN 220/320) to undergraduate students, Banking and Financial Services (FIN 426/626) to undergraduate and MBA students, and Applied Corporate Finance (FIN 726A) to PhD students.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Corporate Finance
Household Finance
Securitization
Real Estate
Conflicts of Interest
Education (3)
The University of Texas at Austin - McCombs School of Business: PhD, Finance
University of Chile - Center for Applied Economics: MA, Applied Economics
University of Chile - School of Engineering: BS, Engineering
Links (1)
In the News (3)
CEOs Who Cheat in Bedroom Will Cheat in Boardroom, Study Shows
Bloomberg online
2019-08-09
Cheating on your spouse goes hand in hand with cheating in the workplace. That’s the conclusion of a provocative new academic study that found a strong correlation between adultery and workplace misconduct by corporate executives and financial advisers.
Mortgage Bankers and Hedge-Fund Revivals
Bloomberg online
2017-05-31
Why didn’t the bankers with the closest ties to the pre-crisis fraud lose their jobs? In their line of thinking, the fraud was not a feature of the people, but a feature of the asset class.
How J.P. Morgan and Barclays Mistakes Inflated the Housing Bubble
Market Watch online
2015-06-04
Gonzalo Maturana, an assistant professor of finance at Emory University in Atlanta, combed through 3.1 million mortgages originated between 2002 and the end of 2007. More than one-quarter of these loans subsequently defaulted. While looking for inconsistencies in appraisal values and owner-occupancy status, the most interesting part of the investigation exposes how some mortgage securities were riddled with undisclosed second liens. These hidden debts reduced the borrowers’ incentive to repay their obligations. Griffin and his co-author found the gaps by comparing bank securities documents to county courthouse records.
Publications (7)
Real effects of workers’ financial distress: Evidence from teacher spillovers
Journal of Financial EconomicsGonzalo Maturana and Jordan Nickerson
2020-04-01
This paper studies the effects of financial distress on workers’ productivity, using detailed data from the public school system in Texas. We show that the student passing rate in the median-sized grade decreases by 1.2 percentage points following a declaration of bankruptcy by one teacher in the grade. The effect of financial distress increases with the complexity of the task. Overall, our results suggest a potential feedback effect of worker financial distress on local economic conditions and thus contribute to the understanding of the propagation, and potential amplification, of shocks through a local economy.
Teachers Teaching Teachers: The Role of Workplace Peer Effects in Financial Decisions
Review of Financial StudiesGonzalo Maturana and Jordan Nickerson
2019-10-01
This paper studies the role of workplace peers in the transmission of information pertinent to an important household financial decision: the mortgage refinancing choice. Exploiting commonalities in teaching schedules of school teachers in Texas to identify peer groups, we find that refinancing activity among teachers’ peers increases their likelihood of refinancing by 20.7%. The effect of peers increases with the potential savings realized upon refinancing and is stronger among younger teachers. Peers also affect teachers’ choice of lender. Overall, our findings suggest that peer interactions greatly reduce a household’s cost of acquiring and processing financial information.
Do labor markets discipline? Evidence from RMBS bankers
Journal of Financial EconomicsJohn M. Griffin, Samuel Kruger, and Gonzalo Maturana
2019-09-01
This paper examines whether employees involved in residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) securitization experienced internal and external labor market consequences relative to similar non-RMBS employees in the same banks and why. Senior RMBS bankers experienced similar levels of job retention, promotion, and external job opportunities. Even signers of RMBS deals with high loss and misreporting rates or deals implicated in lawsuits experienced no adverse internal or external labor market outcomes. These findings are likely not explained by targeted or delayed employee discipline, small legal fines, or protection due to pending litigation but are consistent with implicit upper-management approval of RMBS activities.
Personal infidelity and professional conduct in 4 settings
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)John M. Griffin, Samuel Kruger, and Gonzalo Maturana
2019-08-13
We study the connection between personal and professional behavior by introducing usage of a marital infidelity website as a measure of personal conduct. Police officers and financial advisors who use the infidelity website are significantly more likely to engage in professional misconduct. Results are similar for US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defendants accused of white-collar crimes, and companies with chief executive officers (CEOs) or chief financial officers (CFOs) who use the website are more than twice as likely to engage in corporate misconduct. The relation is not explained by a wide range of regional, firm, executive, and cultural variables. These findings suggest that personal and workplace behavior are closely related.
When Are Modifications of Securitized Loans Beneficial to Investors?
Review of Financial StudiesGonzalo Maturana
2017-11-01
Loan modification is widely discussed as an alternative to foreclosure, but little research has focused on quantifying its effect on loan performance. I quantify this effect early in the housing crisis by exploiting exogenous variation in the incentives to modify securitized nonagency loans. An additional modification reduces loan losses by 35.8% relative to the average loss; this reduction suggests that the marginal benefit of modification likely exceeded the marginal cost. Consistent with the idea that high-income borrowers may be better equipped to withstand bad economic times, I find that modifications are especially beneficial when borrowers have larger loans.
Did Dubious Mortgage Origination Practices Distort House Prices?
Review of Financial StudiesJohn M. Griffin and Gonzalo Maturana
2016-07-01
ZIP codes with high concentrations of originators who misreported mortgage information experienced a 75% larger relative increase in house prices from 2003 to 2006 and a 90% larger relative decrease from 2007 to 2012 compared with other ZIP codes. Several causality tests show that high fractions of dubious originators in a ZIP code lead to large price distortions. Originators with high misreporting gave credit to borrowers with high ex ante risk, yet further understated the borrowers' true risk. Overall, excess credit facilitated through dubious origination practices explain much of the regional variation in house prices over a decade.
Who Facilitated Misreporting in Securitized Loans?
Review of Financial StudiesJohn M. Griffin and Gonzalo Maturana
2016-02-01
This paper examines apparent fraud among securitized nonagency loans using three indicators: unreported second liens, owner occupancy misreporting, and appraisal overstatements. We find that around 48% of loans exhibited at least one indicator of misrepresentation. Surprisingly, misreporting is similar in both low and full documentation loans and is associated with a 51% higher likelihood of delinquency. Two-thirds of loans with unreported second liens had the same originator issuing both the first and second lien. Misrepresentations in MBS pools can explain substantial cross-sectional differences in future losses. Losses were predictable and initiating from apparent fraud by MBS underwriters and loan originators.
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