Infectious diseases, dividend policy, and independent directors: Evidence from textual analysis

We investigated the effect of uncertainty associated with infectious diseases on corporate dividend policy. We used a unique text-based measure of infectious diseases that includes not only the Covid-19, but also other important diseases, such as SARs, MERs, and Ebola. Based on a sample of 287,151 firm-year observations across four decades (from 1985 to 2021), our results show that a higher level of uncertainty associated with infectious diseases significantly reduce dividends. Interestingly, we also found that having more independent directors on the board mitigates the negative effect of uncertainty associated with infectious diseases on dividends which implies that the reduction in dividends was partly driven by agency conflicts. We performed several robustness checks which confirm that our findings are unlikely to be affected by endogeneity issues.

The interaction effects of automation and population aging on labor market

Automation and population aging are two major forces that will shape the nature of works in the future. However, it is not clear how these forces will interact with each other and affect the labor market. This paper examines the interaction effects of computerization and population aging on the labor market. We found that computerization and population aging have large and statistically significant effects on employment growth but not earnings growth. Also, their interaction terms are statistically significant only for employment growth but not for earnings growth.

Jumps and Cojumps analyses of major and minor cryptocurrencies

This paper empirically examines jumps and cojumps of both major and minor cryptocurrencies. Understanding the nature of their jumps and cojumps plays an important role in risk management, asset allocation and pricing of derivatives. We find that all cryptocurrencies display significant jumps. Furthermore, minor cryptocurrencies appear to have significantly higher jump intensity and jump size than major cryptocurrencies. Finally, we find that cojumps of the Thai stock market index and minor cryptocurrencies have a greater intensity than that of major cryptocurrencies.