IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/98767.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Surveillance using Corporate Text

Author

Abstract

FULL AND CORRECT ORDER OF AUTHORS: Tarek A. Hassan, Stephan Hollander, Aakash Kalyani, Laurence van Lent, Markus Schwedeler, and Ahmed Tahoun. This article applies simple methods from computational linguistics to analyze unstructured corporate texts for economic surveillance. We apply text-as-data approaches to earnings conference call transcripts, patent texts, and job postings to uncover unique insights into how markets and firms respond to economic shocks, such as a nuclear disaster or a geopolitical event---insights that often elude traditional data sources. This method enhances our ability to extract actionable intelligence from textual data, thereby aiding policy-making and strategic corporate decisions. By integrating computational linguistics into the analysis of economic shocks, our study opens new possibilities for real-time economic surveillance and offers a more nuanced understanding of firm-level reactions in volatile economic environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarek A. Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Aakash Kalyani & Markus Schwedeler & Ahmed Tahoun & Laurence van Lent, 2024. "Economic Surveillance using Corporate Text," Working Papers 2024-022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:98767
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2024.022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2024/2024-022.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/wp.2024.022?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bryan Kelly & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Matt Taddy, 2021. "Measuring Technological Innovation over the Long Run," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 303-320, September.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    3. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    4. Luca Gambetti & Jordi Galí, 2009. "On the Sources of the Great Moderation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 26-57, January.
    5. Brad Hershbein & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Do Recessions Accelerate Routine-Biased Technological Change? Evidence from Vacancy Postings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1737-1772, July.
    6. Bloom, Nicholas & Hassan, Tarek Alexander & Kalyani, Aakash & Lerner, Josh & Tahoun, Ahmed, 2021. "The diffusion of disruptive technologies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Jihun Bae & Chung Yu Hung & Laurence van Lent, 2023. "Mobilizing Text As Data," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 1085-1106, October.
    8. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    9. Luca Benati & Paolo Surico, 2009. "VAR Analysis and the Great Moderation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1636-1652, September.
    10. Marc-André Gosselin & Temel Taskin, 2023. "What Can Earnings Calls Tell Us About the Output Gap and Inflation in Canada?," Discussion Papers 2023-13, Bank of Canada.
    11. Tarek A Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2019. "Firm-Level Political Risk: Measurement and Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2135-2202.
    12. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    13. Jessen L. Hobson & William J. Mayew & Mohan Venkatachalam, 2012. "Analyzing Speech to Detect Financial Misreporting," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 349-392, May.
    14. Aakash Kalyani & Nicholas Bloom & Marcela Carvalho & Tarek Alexander Hassan & Josh Lerner & Ahmed Tahoun, 2021. "The Diffusion of New Technologies," NBER Working Papers 28999, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Josh Lerner & Amit Seru, 2022. "The Use and Misuse of Patent Data: Issues for Finance and Beyond," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(6), pages 2667-2704.
    16. Stephan Hollander & Maarten Pronk & Erik Roelofsen, 2010. "Does Silence Speak? An Empirical Analysis of Disclosure Choices During Conference Calls," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 531-563, June.
    17. Frankel, R & Johnson, M & Skinner, DJ, 1999. "An empirical examination of conference calls as a voluntary disclosure medium," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 133-150.
    18. Alex Kim & Maximilian Muhn & Valeri Nikolaev, 2023. "Bloated Disclosures: Can ChatGPT Help Investors Process Information?," Papers 2306.10224, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    19. Andersson, Malin & Neves, Pedro & Nunes, Carolina, 2023. "Earnings calls: new evidence on corporate profits, investment and financing conditions," Economic Bulletin Boxes, European Central Bank, vol. 4.
    20. Crawford, Vincent P & Sobel, Joel, 1982. "Strategic Information Transmission," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1431-1451, November.
    21. Tim Loughran & Bill Mcdonald, 2011. "When Is a Liability Not a Liability? Textual Analysis, Dictionaries, and 10‐Ks," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 35-65, February.
    22. Allen H. Huang & Reuven Lehavy & Amy Y. Zang & Rong Zheng, 2018. "Analyst Information Discovery and Interpretation Roles: A Topic Modeling Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(6), pages 2833-2855, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias Niggli & Christian Rutzer, 2023. "Digital technologies, technological improvement rates, and innovations “Made in Switzerland”," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-31, December.
    2. Tarek A. Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence Van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2024. "The Global Impact of Brexit Uncertainty," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 413-458, February.
    3. Tarek Alexander Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2020. "The Global Impact of Brexit Uncertainty," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-332, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    4. Jin, Zuben, 2024. "Business aspects in focus, investor underreaction and return predictability," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Zacharias Sautner & Laurence Van Lent & Grigory Vilkov & Ruishen Zhang, 2023. "Firm‐Level Climate Change Exposure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1449-1498, June.
    6. Tarek A Hassan & Stephan Hollander & Laurence van Lent & Ahmed Tahoun, 2019. "Firm-Level Political Risk: Measurement and Effects," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 2135-2202.
    7. Devrimi Kaya & Christian Maier & Tobias Böhmer, 2020. "Empirische Kapitalmarktforschung zu Conference Calls: Eine Literaturanalyse [Empirical Capital Market Research on Conference Calls: A Literature Review]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 72(2), pages 183-212, June.
    8. Pablo Ottonello & Wenting Song & Sebastian Sotelo, 2024. "An Anatomy of Firms’ Political Speech," NBER Working Papers 32923, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Matthew Bamber & Santhosh Abraham, 2020. "On the “Realities” of Investor‐Manager Interactivity: Baudrillard, Hyperreality, and Management Q&A Sessions†," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 1290-1325, June.
    10. Do, Chuong, 2024. "Financial analysts' information discovery: A study of manager-analyst interactions in conference calls," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Rennekamp, Kristina M. & Sethuraman, Mani & Steenhoven, Blake A., 2022. "Engagement in earnings conference calls," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1).
    12. Tengfei Zhang, 2020. "Manager Uncertainty and Cross-Sectional Stock Returns," 2020 Papers pzh934, Job Market Papers.
    13. Zhou, Xi & Xiao, Min & Wu, Huiying & You, Jiaxing, 2024. "Does policy uncertainty travel across borders? Evidence from MNC subsidiary investment decisions," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Jessica L. Darby & David J. Ketchen & Brent D. Williams & Travis Tokar, 2020. "The Implications of Firm‐Specific Policy Risk, Policy Uncertainty, and Industry Factors for Inventory: A Resource Dependence Perspective," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 56(4), pages 3-24, October.
    15. Belke, Ansgar & Göcke, Matthias, 2019. "Interest rate hysteresis in macroeconomic investment under uncertainty," Ruhr Economic Papers 801, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    16. Dim, Chukwuma & Koerner, Kevin & Wolski, Marcin & Zwart, Sanne, 2022. "Hot off the press: News-implied sovereign default risk," EIB Working Papers 2022/06, European Investment Bank (EIB).
    17. Pastwa, Anna M. & Shrestha, Prabal & Thewissen, James & Torsin, Wouter, 2021. "Unpacking the black box of ICO white papers: a topic modeling approach," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2021018, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    18. Chen, Qi & Vashishtha, Rahul, 2017. "The effects of bank mergers on corporate information disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 56-77.
    19. Gabriel P. Mathy, 2020. "How much did uncertainty shocks matter in the Great Depression?," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(2), pages 283-323, May.
    20. S. McKay Price & Michael J. Seiler & Jiancheng Shen, 2017. "Do Investors Infer Vocal Cues from CEOs During Quarterly REIT Conference Calls?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 515-557, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    text as data; natural language processing;

    JEL classification:

    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:98767. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.