Professor Elena Simintzi

Elena Simintzi is a Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research examines how firms respond to labor market frictions, regulation, and technological change. Working at the intersection of finance and labor economics, she studies how corporate policies shape wages, inequality, and employment outcomes. A significant portion of her work focuses on pay disparities within firms and evaluates the firm-level effects of regulations designed to reduce wage gaps and promote equity. She has also written extensively on the workforce implications of technological disruption, analyzing how firms adopt new technologies and how those choices reshape employment, compensation, and job design—work with direct relevance for policymakers concerned with innovation, productivity, and worker protection.

Her research has been published in leading academic journals, including the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Financial Economics. It has also informed public debate, with features in the Harvard Business Review and coverage by major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Economist, and CNN Business. She is a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Research Member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), and a founding board member of the Labor and Finance Group. Over the past several years, she has served as an Associate Editor on the editorial boards of several leading finance journals.

Prior to joining UNC Kenan-Flagler, Professor Simintzi was on the faculty at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia. She received her PhD in Finance from London Business School.