In our paper “Cybersecurity Risk” (Florackis, C., Louca, C., Michaely, R. and M. Weber. 2023. The Review of Financial Studies, Volume 36, Issue 1, Pages 351-407; https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhac024) we construct a novel firm-level measure of cybersecurity risk using textual analysis of...

We study the long-term effects of inflation surges on inflation expectations. German households living in areas with higher local inflation during the hyperinflation of the 1920s expect higher inflation today. Our evidence points towards a transmission of inflation experiences from parents to...

Asset pricing models implicitly assume that firm characteristics are context-free. At the same time, companies provide a substantial narrative context that helps investors to put numeric information in perspective. Management may discuss non-quantitative factors that influence performance, such...

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can fundamentally change the way investors process information. We probe the economic usefulness of these tools in summarizing complex corporate disclosures using the stock market as a laboratory. The unconstrained summaries are dramatically shorter, often by...

This paper uses ChatGPT, a large language model, to extract managerial expectations of corporate policies from disclosures. We create a firm-level ChatGPT investment score, based on conference call texts, that measures managers’ anticipated changes in capital expenditures. We validate the...

Using randomized control trials (RCTs) applied over time in different countries, we study how the economic environment affects how agents learn from new information. We show that as inflation has recently risen in advanced economies, both households and firms have become more attentive and...

We study how the availability of credit shapes adaptation to a climatic shock, specifically, the long 1950s US drought. We find that bank lending, net immigration, and population growth decline sharply in drought exposed areas with limited initial access to bank finance. In contrast,...

Inflation expectations of households and firms are central determinants in all dynamic macro models. Yet, empirical evidence suggests these decision makers form expectations in a way that deviates from the assumptions in these models: on average, inflation expectations are biased upwards, are...

We provide evidence on the payout policies and guidance practices of U.S. non-financial firms since 2000. We argue that managers adopt systematic capital management policies that link payouts to guidance and help credibly convey their expectations about their firms’ prospects. We also examine...