Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor of Finance at NYU Stern and a Research Collaborator at Global Capital Allocation Project. My research focuses on international finance and macroeconomics.
Before joining NYU, I received my PhD in Finance from Columbia Business School in 2025.
You can find my CV here.
Email: amanda.dossantos@stern.nyu.edu
The Development of Domestic Bond Markets
Revise and Resubmit, Review of Financial Studies.
This paper documents the importance of government debt in facilitating the development of corporate bond markets. Using micro-level data from Brazil, I exploit variation in the supply of government bonds at different maturities to estimate the causal effect of additional government debt outstanding on firm issuance decisions. I find that at early stages of development, government debt is a complement for corporate debt, implying that additional government debt outstanding at a given maturity causes firms to issue more. These effects ultimately increase long-term debt issuance and investment across firms, with stronger responses from companies with higher asset duration. However, as markets mature and government debt levels rise, I document a shift from complementarity to substitution. This evidence can be rationalized through government debt reducing corporate pricing uncertainty by providing pricing benchmarks and facilitating price discovery in bond markets.
International Currency Competition
with Christopher Clayton, Matteo Maggiori and Jesse Schreger. November 2024.
We study how countries compete to become an international safe asset provider. Governments in our model issue debt to a common set of investors, resulting in competition as issuance by one country raises required yields for all countries. Governments are tempted ex post to engage in expropriation or capital controls, and can build reputation as a safe asset provider by resisting temptation to do so. We show how increased competition deters countries from building reputation, leaving more countries stuck at low reputation levels and unable to supply safe assets. We derive a model-implied measure of country reputation. We estimate this reputation measure using micro-data on investor portfolio holdings, and use it to track the evolution of countries' reputation over time. We study how an incumbent safe asset provider, like the U.S., uses its issuance strategy to deter the emergence of competitors.
Internationalizing Like China
with Christopher Clayton, Matteo Maggiori and Jesse Schreger. American Economic Review, March 2025.
Selected Media Coverage: Bloomberg | The Economist | Business Insider
We empirically characterize how China is internationalizing its bond market by staggering the entry of different types of foreign investors into its domestic market and propose a dynamic reputation model to explain this strategy. Our framework rationalizes China’s strategy as trying to build credibility as a safe issuer while reducing the cost of capital flight. We use our framework to shed light on China's response to episodes of capital outflows.
American Investment in Chinese Renminbi
with Bruno Cavani, Christopher Clayton, Matteo Maggiori and Jesse Schreger. Forthcoming, AEA Paper and Proceedings, May 2026.
This paper uses microdata on U.S. mutual fund and ETF portfolios from SEC Form NPORT to study American investment in Chinese Renminbi (RMB)–denominated bonds. We show that, even as total foreign holdings of Chinese bonds rebounded in 2024, U.S. holdings of RMB bonds fell sharply and that most of this decline reflects funds exiting RMB positions entirely. These patterns point to a shift in the composition of China’s foreign investor base away from U.S. institutional investors and illustrate how publicly available microdata can inform work on the geopolitics of international currency use.
China in Tax Havens
with Christopher Clayton, Antonio Coppola, Matteo Maggiori and Jesse Schreger. AEA Paper and Proceedings, May 2023.
Selected Media Coverage: New York Times | Bloomberg
We document the rise of China in offshore capital markets. Chinese firms use global tax havens to access foreign capital both in equity and bond markets. In the last twenty years, China’s presence went from raising a negligible amount of capital in these markets to accounting for more than half of equity issuance and around a fifth of global corporate bonds outstanding in tax havens. Using rich micro data, we show that a range of Chinese firms, including both tech giants and SOEs, use these offshore centers. We conclude by discussing the macroeconomic and financial stability implications of these patterns.