Using a survey of 5,504 respondents from 22 European countries, we examine preferences regarding cash and cashless payments at the point of sale (POS) during the COVID-19 crisis. Consumers favor cashless transactions when they believe that handling cash presents a higher risk of infection....

This paper focuses on narratives published by UK companies, defined here as the content of annual reports excluding financial statements and notes to accounts. We endeavour to gauge the tone of these narratives by recording the frequency of positive words appearing in the text. We show that the...

This survey starts by reviewing the literature investigating whether political connectedness of companies creates wealth for their shareholders. It then moves on to examine whether there is an association between the orientation of the political executive or the phase of the electoral cycle with...

This paper investigates the behavior of crude oil prices, government bonds and stock market indices around outbreaks of severe international crises and wars. Using a constant-mean-return event study, we show that these events are associated with positive and significant abnormal returns on oil...

Using a Vector Autoregression framework, this paper investigates the dynamic relationship between the intensity of negative media speculation and the market performance of financial institutions. Evidence is provided that over the sub-prime crisis period pessimistic coverage Granger-caused the...

We use content analysis software to examine certain characteristics of communications arising from European Council meetings. These characteristics appear to explain a large proportion of variation in stock returns around the meeting dates. More specifically, stock market investors react...