We exploit a novel natural experiment to establish a clear causal relation between media attention and consumer investment behavior. Our findings indicate a 31 percent local average increase in quarterly capital flows into mutual funds mentioned in a prominent Wall Street Journal “Category...

We examine how investor attention changes when a firm adopts a modern news dissemination technology. We find that after continental European firms begin using an English-language electronic wire service to disseminate company news, they exhibit a stronger initial reaction to earnings surprises,...

Using a survey with information treatments conducted in the aftermath of SVB's collapse, we study households' perspectives on bank stability, the potential for panic-driven bank runs, and the role of public communication. When informed about SVB's collapse, households become more likely to...

A war-related factor model derived from textual analysis of media news reports explains the cross section of expected asset returns. Using a semi-supervised topic model to extract discourse topics from 7,000,000 New York Times stories spanning 160 years, the war factor predicts the cross section...

Using a semi-supervised topic model on 7,000,000 New York Times articles spanning 160 years, we test whether topics of media discourse predict future stock and bond market returns to test rational and behavioral hypotheses about market valuation of disaster risk. Focusing on media discourse...