Despite government policies targeting it, digital piracy remains rampant. Academic research has not reached a consensus on whether piracy is harmful to the affected firms or industries. This study constructs a new piracy index based on internet search frequency in China that reflects the...

Although most empirical studies conclude that uncertainty delays firms' investments based on real options theory, empirical evidence regarding the impact of uncertainty on innovation is mixed. This study examines the impact of geopolitical risk (GPR) on corporate research and development (R&D)...

This study investigates the effects of geopolitical risk (GPR) on asset markets in 17 advanced countries from 1899 to 2016 using novel GPR indices. First, compared with housing returns, stock returns are more sensitive to increases in GPR: on average, an increase in GPR significantly decreases...

This study investigates how firms’ lobbying activities change over business cycles. We show that firms lobby more during recessions. Aside from active lobbying firms, non-lobbying firms are also more likely to start lobbying during recessions. Corporate lobbying generally responds only to...

This study examines the effect of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on U.S. job search activity by developing sectoral and state-level job search indices. We document that Covid-19 has a significantly negative effect on job search, and that this effect varies across sectors and regions, being...

We investigate job search activity in China by constructing novel job search activity indices based on internet search volumes. These indices correlate positively with countercyclical labor market measures and negatively with procyclical ones. Our results suggest job search behavior is...

We employ the indicator saturation approach on electricity price series from the National Electricity Market (NEM) in Australia to simultaneously model the stylised facts of electricity prices, including extreme spikes, seasonality, level-shifts, and autocorrelation. Standard modelling methods...