Relying on a large and unique dataset on the cash withdrawals of over 165 million bank cards from China, we find that the existence of a larger number of cash withdrawals late at night is associated with more criminal activity. The effect is stronger for those crimes that are more involved in...

We study how investor sentiment affects stock prices around the world. Relying on households' Google search behavior, we construct a weekly measure of sentiment for 38 countries during the 2004–2014 period. We validate the sentiment index in tests using sports outcomes and show that the...

DeVault, Sias, and Starks (2019) find a positive relation between institutional investors’ net buying of risky stocks and the contemporaneous change in market sentiment. They interpret this as evidence that institutional investors are sentiment traders, whose demand shocks drive prices from...

Anthropogenic production and operating activities give off heat and emit thermal infrared radiation (TIR) as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. This study examines whether the strength of TIR measures the dynamics of economic activities and development. Using satellite data on...

This study examines how short-sale constraints affect investors’ information acquisition and thereby shape stock price efficiency. By exploiting two settings that relax short-sale constraints in the US and China, respectively, we find that the removal of short-sale constraints increases...

We examine whether corporate accessibility to outside market participants can mitigate stock price crash risk in a weak public information environment. We measure accessibility by assessing whether outside investors can assess and communicate with firms via public communication channels (e.g.,...

Air pollution is a growing hazard to human health. This study examines whether air pollution affects the formation of corporate human capital and thereby firm performance. We find that people exhibit an intention to look for jobs in less polluted areas when air pollution is high in their...

China's markets gained 3.86% around December 4, 2012, when the Party announced anti-corruption reforms. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) with higher past entertainment and travel costs (ETC) gained more. NonSOEs gained in more liberalized provinces, especially those with high past ETC,...

Chinese share prices rose sharply on the Politburo's Dec. 4th, 2012, announcement of its Eight-point Regulation, an uncharacteristically detailed and concrete Party policy, initiating an extensive anti-corruption campaign and announced surprisingly soon after a change in leadership. The reaction...