This study implements topical analysis to identify the extent to which managers shift their responses from analysts’ questions in earnings conference calls. We refer to this behavior as managerial topic-shifting. Using a sample of conference calls from 2002 to 2017, we find that managers in firms with better performance, more powerful CEOs, and a weaker information environment shift more from the topics of analysts’ inquiries. Managers are also more likely to shift topics when analysts’ questions display a more positive tone or lower specificity. Moreover, we find that managerial topic-shifting provides incremental information to capital markets by facilitating the incorporation of earnings information into stock prices. Our study documents a previously unexplored dimension of managerial disclosure strategy.

Why is workplace sexual harassment chronically underreported? We hypothesize that employers coerce victims into silence through the threat of a retaliatory firing, and test this theory by estimating whether external shocks that reduce the value of a worker's outside options exacerbate underreporting. Under mild assumptions, a rise in the severity of formal complaints is indicative of increased underreporting. Combining this insight with an objective measure of the quality of charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), we perform two analyses. First, we assess whether workers report sexual harassment more selectively during recessions, when outside labor market options are limited. We estimate the fraction of sexual harassment charges deemed to have merit by the EEOC increases by 0.5-0.7% for each one percentage point increase in a state-industry's monthly unemployment rate. The effect is amplified in industries employing a larger fraction of men and in establishments with a higher share of male managers. Second, we test whether less generous UI benefits create economic incentives for victims of workplace sexual harassment to remain silent. We find the selectivity of sexual harassment charges increases by more than 30% in response to a 50% cut to North Carolina's Unemployment Insurance (UI) program following the Great Recession.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Stablecoins are a new form of private money. They are fragile but largely trade at par. How? We present a model and empirical work to examine a novel source of demand for stablecoins. Stablecoin owners are indirectly compensated for run risk by lending their coins to crypto speculators. The stablecoin can then support its $1 peg, but this arrangement links crypto speculation to traditional financial markets where stablecoins invest their reserves.

We propose a novel identification strategy to isolate exogenous immigration shocks across US counties, by interacting quasi-random variations in the composition of ancestry across counties with the contemporaneous inflow of migrants from different countries. We show a positive causal impact of immigration on local innovation and wages at the five-year horizon. The positive dynamic impact of immigration on innovation and wages dominates the short-run negative impact of increased labor supply. A structural estimation of a model of endogenous growth and migrations suggests the increased immigration to the United States since 1965 may have increased innovation and wages by 5 percent. (JEL J15, J22, J31, J61, O31, R11, R23)

ABSTRACT We study how firms' inventory holdings are affected by natural disasters. Building on the premise that managers often make decisions in line with the availability heuristic, we investigate whether managers increase inventory holdings in response to heightened disaster risk perceptions and the need to hedge against inventory shortages. Through a battery of tests, we show that the occurrence of disasters in neighboring counties triggers inventory stockpiling, an effect that is unlikely to be driven by the real disaster disruptions. Our results also indicate that inventory stockpiling is likely inconsistent with a rational expectations equilibrium. Collectively, our results highlight another undesirable consequence of natural disasters and warn about supply chain implications due to increased climate ambiguity. Data Availability: All the data used in this study are publicly available. JEL Classifications: G31; G41; M21; M11; M41; Q54.