I am a Ph.D. candidate in Management Science (Accounting) at the Naveen Jindal School of Business, University of Texas at Dallas, on the academic job market in 2025–2026.
My research examines corporate governance and disclosure regulation, with an emphasis on individual decision-makers and executive compensation.
Mandatory Cybersecurity Disclosure and Corporate Governance
Solo Author
Job Market PaperWP
In 2023, the SEC introduced mandatory cybersecurity disclosure rules requiring public companies to disclose cyber risk management strategies, board-level oversight of cyber risks, and the relevant expertise of responsible individuals. I find that the regulation increases disclosure and reduces information asymmetry. Firms increase the number of directors reported as having cybersecurity expertise, both by appointing new directors and by disclosing incumbent directors as experts. However, these post-regulation cyber-expert directors exhibit notably lower industry experience, smaller networks, reduced independence, and a lower likelihood of being female, while simultaneously serving on more boards than other directors—indicating firms face labor-market constraints. I also document that assigning cybersecurity oversight to audit committees reduces monitoring effectiveness: audit quality decreases and oversight costs rise, consistent with committee capacity constraints. These findings highlight unintended governance consequences of disclosure mandates requiring specialized oversight when director labor markets are constrained and committees face capacity limits.
Committee: Ashiq Ali, Rafael Copat, Jedson Pinto, Gil Sadka (Chair), Shiva Sivaramakrishnan
This paper examines the association between a judge's financial holdings and the outcome of legal cases. Using novel data on financial disclosures of judges and the civil case information of public firms across district courts in the United States between 2000 and 2021, we document multiple instances in which judges fail to recuse themselves in cases where they hold common stock. We find robust evidence that judges rule more favorably and take longer when deciding over conflicted cases as compared to unconflicted ones. We also find that investors are positively surprised by these outcomes, as reflected by stock returns to trial outcomes. Collectively, our results provide the first large-scale evidence of the relation between judges' financial holdings and case outcomes.
Presentations: Hawaii Accounting Research Conference 2024; European Accounting Association 2023; AAA Annual Meeting 2023; Georgetown 2022; UTD 2022 Media: CLS Blue Sky Blog; Empirical Legal Studies Blog (2022, 2023)
Revise & Resubmit — Journal of Accounting Research
Front-loaded equity awards (FLEAs) are one-time equity grants intended as compensation for multiple years. We manually identify FLEAs and document that 9.1% of the firms in our sample grant their CEOs such an award at least once. We fail to find evidence that FLEAs are used to deliver excess compensation. Consistent with the efficient contracting hypothesis, we find that firms facing greater growth opportunities, announcing an acquisition, incurring a loss, and hiring a new CEO are more likely to adopt FLEAs. We find little support for the rent extraction hypothesis. While firms avoid FLEAs when shareholder voting rights are stronger, the announcement of a FLEA is associated with a positive and statistically significant stock market reaction of approximately 1%. We also examine how other stakeholders perceive FLEAs, and we find that media articles are more negatively toned. In addition, ISS is 39% more likely to recommend against say-on-pay, and the subsequent voting dissent is largely driven by shareholders following ISS recommendations. Overall, our results suggest that some firms avoid adopting an unconventional compensation design that may increase firm value because of the potential criticism from information intermediaries.
Presentations: AAA 2025; FARS 2025; Hawaii Accounting Research Conference 2025; CFEA 2024; SMU-UTD Cowtown 2024; Fox & Haskayne 2024; Rice Accounting PhD 2024; University of Minnesota 2024; UTD 2024
We examine how gender diversity in the workforce influences firm outcomes, emphasizing the moderating role of organizational culture. Using an instrumental variable—state childcare funding in Democratic-leaning states—and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission disclosure-based workforce data, we find that diversity increases firms' research and development (R&D) investment, innovation quality, and overall firm value. These effects appear even in firms with low board diversity. We identify two mechanisms: increased productivity and reduced employee violations. Additionally, textual analyses and the MeToo movement as a cultural shock show that the positive impact of diversity is strongest in firms with supportive cultures. Our findings highlight that workforce diversity contributes to firm success beyond board representation, but its full benefits depend on an inclusive organizational environment.
This study investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities and firms' tax aggressiveness. Prior literature documents mixed evidence on this association. We exploit an exogenous regulatory shock in India, which mandates that qualifying firms allocate at least 2% of their post-tax profits to CSR activities. Using both a difference-in-differences (DiD) framework and a regression discontinuity design (RDD), we find that publicly listed firms subject to the CSR mandate exhibit higher effective and cash tax rates. In contrast, mandated firms that failed to comply with the spending requirement display lower effective and cash tax rates. These results are consistent with the socially responsible firms hypothesis, suggesting that CSR-oriented firms perceive CSR expenditures and corporate tax payments as complementary channels of social responsibility.
Provided academic support across executive and graduate programs, including Financial Accounting and AIS. Awarded Best Academic Associate of the Year — PGPMAX Class 2018.
Teaching Assistant (Remote)
Kellogg School of Management · 2017–2019
Supported graduate-level courses remotely in finance and accounting.
Teaching Assistant
IIM Kozhikode · 2013–2014
Assisted faculty with coursework delivery and student support for MBA-level accounting courses.
Student Feedback
Honestly one of the best professors I've ever had at UT Dallas. Made a subject like accounting that I used to find boring something I am more interested to learn about instead of dreading it.
Professor Parupati was excellent and very insightful. I think he did a great job making accounting easy to understand especially for his first time teaching this course.
The teacher was amazing, and I hope he goes on to teach more students as I believe more people should get taught by him.
This professor was very passionate about teaching, always explaining questions and never trying to get rude, snarky, or dismissive when people asked. This was overall a great professor to learn from.
Teaching Interests
Core Courses
Financial Accounting · Managerial Accounting · Accounting Information Systems · Data Analytics in Accounting
