We use daily survey data from Gallup to assess whether households' beliefs about economic conditions are influenced by surprises in monetary policy announcements. We first provide more general evidence that public confidence in the state of the economy reacts to certain types of macroeconomic...

This paper investigates the effects of state right-to-work (RTW) laws on dimensions of individual well-being. Using licensed micro-data from Gallup between 2008-2017, this paper finds that the adoption of RTW laws is associated with a 0.029sd and 0.041sd increase in individual life satisfaction...

This paper investigates the cyclicality of time allocated towards research and development (R&D) activities. First, using longitudinal micro-data from 2000-2013, I find that time allocated towards research activities is highly procyclical among private sector employees, but countercyclical among...

Is housing price growth causally linked with information technology (IT) investment among firms? Using establishment data between 1996-2007, we find that a percentage point rise in the growth rate of zipcode-level housing prices is associated with a 0.03-0.08% increase in information technology....

The US government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis included the exercise of emergency powers to suspend rules and regulations that hindered society’s efforts to mitigate the pandemic. It will be important to rescind or revise many of those regulations after the crisis, but we insist that...

Understanding the contribution of demographic, socio-economic, and geographic characteristics as determinants of physical health and well-being is important for guiding public health policies and preventative behavior interventions, particularly with the spread of coronavirus. We leverage...

Why are some countries better prepared against cyber attacks than others? Whilst previous studies have revealed discrepancies in countries' cyber readiness, there has not been any rigorous analysis which attempts to explain this variation. Based upon a new dataset (the Country Cyber Capability...

While data breaches have become more common, there is little evidence that companies that incur them experience a persistent decline in financial performance or security prices. Using new firm-level data between 2002 and 2018, this paper finds that firms experience a 26-29% increase in...