diff --git a/peerqa/data_loader.py b/peerqa/data_loader.py
index 8ac3457..03c688b 100644
--- a/peerqa/data_loader.py
+++ b/peerqa/data_loader.py
@@ -1,17 +1,22 @@
 from typing import Iterator, Literal, Union
+from pathlib import Path
 
 import pandas as pd
 from tqdm.auto import tqdm
 
 
 class PaperLoader:
-    def __init__(self, papers_file: str):
-        self.df = pd.read_json(papers_file, lines=True)
+    def __init__(self, papers_file: Union[str, Path]):
+        papers_file = Path(papers_file)
+        if papers_file.exists() and papers_file.stat().st_size > 0:
+            self.df = pd.read_json(papers_file, lines=True)
+        else:
+            self.df = pd.DataFrame({"paper_id": []})
 
     def __call__(
         self,
         granularity: Literal["sentences", "paragraphs"],
-        template: str = None,
+        template: Union[str, None] = None,
         show_progress: bool = True,
     ) -> Iterator[tuple[str, list[str], list[str]]]:
         """Yields a the paper_id, sentence/paragraph index and sentence/paragraph."""
@@ -85,6 +90,8 @@ def get_title(self, paper_id: str) -> str:
         return title
 
     def has_paper_id(self, paper_id: str) -> bool:
+        if self.df.empty:
+            return False
         return paper_id in self.df.paper_id.unique()