Search Results
Working Paper
Economic Uncertainty before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
We consider several economic uncertainty indicators for the United States and the UK before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: implied stock market volatility, newspaper-based economic policy uncertainty, twitter chatter about economic uncertainty, subjective uncertainty about future business growth, and disagreement among professional forecasters about future gross domestic product growth. Three results emerge. First, all indicators show huge uncertainty jumps in reaction to the pandemic and its economic fallout. Indeed, most indicators reach their highest values on record. Second, peak ...
Working Paper
Firm Data on AI
We present the first representative international data on firm-level AI use. We survey almost 6,000 CFOs, CEOs, and executives from stratified firm samples across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia. We find four key facts. First, around 70 percent of firms actively use AI, particularly younger, more productive firms. Second, while over two-thirds of top executives regularly use AI, their average use is only 1.5 hours a week, with one quarter reporting no AI use. Third, firms report little impact of AI over the last three years, with more than 80 percent of firms reporting no impact on either ...