Yanlin Bao (包岩霖)

Welcome to my webpage!

I am a PhD Candidate in Business (Finance) at Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University (SMU). Before my Ph.D. journey at SMU, I obtained an MSc in FinTech at HKUST and a BBA in Financial Management at Nankai University.  

I am on the 2026-2027 academic job market.

My research interests include Behavioral Finance, Household Finance, Sustainable Finance,  and FinTech. My research focuses on understanding (i) how behavioral factors, especially cognitive frictions, shape household financial decision-making, and (ii) how financial markets facilitate the transition to a sustainable economy.

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Job Market Paper

Context-Dependent Memory and Disagreement: Evidence from Household Inflation Expectations

• Conferences: AEA, Boulder Summer Conference (Poster), RBFC, DGF, FMA New Ideas Session, SMU Summer Camp, Future Finance Fest, AFFI PhD Workshop, MRS

• Abstract: Households form beliefs by recalling past experiences, but recall is distorted by the similarity between present and past contextual cues. Variation in contexts alone can therefore generate non-fundamental disagreement. A stylized model à la Wachter and Kahana (2024) illustrates this cognitive source of disagreement. Using weather as contextual cues that trigger recall of past shopping experiences, I construct a measure of memory-based household inflation disagreement in the U.S. and show that it explains survey-based disagreement, with stronger effects in unusual contexts. Exploiting the gender gap in shopping further supports the underlying mental process. The measure follows established memory regularities, differs from experience and mood effects, and generalizes to Indian households. This form of disagreement has real policy implications: it weakens the power of monetary policy, yet is not captured by GenAI-simulated economic agents.