Paige Ouimet became executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise in August 2023 after a year as the institute’s research director.

She has several research projects looking at income inequality and the role of firms. She also has researched ESOP (employee share ownership plans) and employee stock options and their impact on labor productivity, wages and turnover.

Her research agenda is concentrated at the juncture of finance and labor economics. She is interested in how decisions studied in finance impact employee stakeholders – specifically how those effects are reflected in firm performance and, hence, corporate finance decisions.

Her work has been published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics.

Paige worked at The Center for Clean Air Policy, an independent, nonprofit think tank working on climate and air quality policy at the local, U.S. national and international levels.

She received her Ph.D. and MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and her B.A. from Dartmouth College.