Biography

Dr. Jiafu An is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Real Estate and Construction at the University of Hong Kong. He is also a core member of the University’s Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality (ICCN). His academic path began with a finance degree from Newcastle University, followed by a Master’s degree in Financial Management, where he graduated with distinction. He then achieved a Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Edinburgh, UK. Before his tenure began at the University of Hong Kong in 2024, Dr. An taught at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Portsmouth in the UK, as well as Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He is also a certified CFA charter holder.
Dr. An’s research explores various areas such as real estate finance, financial technology, green finance, cryptocurrency, and the historical aspects of finance. His dedication to research has been recognized with awards from the Financial Management Association and the European Financial Management Association. His findings have been featured in well-regarded journals across different fields, including general interest journals such as Nature, finance journals such as Journal of Financial Economics, Management Science, Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, economics journals such as Journal of Development Economics, Energy Economics, and Energy Policy. Jiafu has also been serving as either Academic Editor or Associate Editor for international leading journals such as International Review of Economics and Finance and PLOS One.

Research Interests:

• Real Estate Finance
• Web3, Blockchain, and Financial Technology
• Development Economics
• Financial Development
• Green Economics
• Urban Economics

Selected Publications:

• Colonial Legacy and Informal Finance (with Chen Lin, Mingzhu Tai)
o Management Science.
• Epidemic Disease and Financial Development (with Chen Lin and Wenxuan Hou)
o Journal of Financial Economics.
• Does Terrorism Make People Pessimistic? Evidence from a Natural Experiment (with Shiqi Guo)
o Journal of Development Economics.
• ChatGPT: Tackle the Growing Carbon Footprint of Generative AI (with Wenzhi Ding and Chen Lin)
o Nature.
• Optimize Urban Shade Using Digital Twins of Cities (with Bin Chen, Chen Lin, and Peng Gong)
o Nature.
• Is There an Employee-based Gender Gap in Informal Financial Markets? International Evidence (Single Author)
o Journal of Corporate Finance.
• Professional Norms and Risk-taking of Bank Employees (with Jiaman Xu and Mengfei Jiang)
o Journal of Financial Stability.
• Inherited Trust and Informal Finance (with Jiaman Xu, Mengfei Jiang and Jiandong Chen)
o Journal of Business Finance and Accounting.
• Initial Coin Offerings: What Rights Do Investors Have? (with Xiaoju Zhao, Wenxuan Hou, Xianda Liu and Yun Zhang)
o European Journal of Finance.
• Cyber-attack risks and initial coin offerings: Evidence from the world (with Tinghua Duan, Wenxuan Hou and Xianda Liu)
o Finance Research Letters.
• Historical Determinants of Fintech Development: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings (with Wenxuan Hou and Xianda Liu)
o Finance Research Letters.
• Asymmetric Information,“Coal-to-gas” Transition and Coal Reduction Potential (with Malin Song, Sachin K Mangla, Jianlin Wang, Jiajia Zhao)
o Energy Economics.
• Corporate sustainability policies and corporate investment efficiency (with Kung-Cheng Ho, Cheng Yan, Zhicheng Mao)
o Energy Economics.
• The impact of green finance on energy transition: Does climate risk matter? (with Chi-Chuan Lee and Hepeng Song)
o Energy Economics.
• Carbon inequality in China: Novel drivers and policy driven scenario analysis (with Chong Xu, Bingjie Wang, Jiandong Chen, Zhiyang Shen, Malin Song )
o Energy Policy.
• Low-carbon development in China’s transportation sector (with Chong Xu, Zhiwen Li, Boyang Chen, Qian Yang)
o Energy. 2023.