Entrepreneurial culture celebrates the successful archetypical founder as a “lone wolf”; however, academic literature has found the majority of new entrepreneurial firms, ventures and start-ups are founded not by individuals, but by teams.
Small businesses are an undeniable engine of growth for the United States, comprising 99 percent of all U.S. firms and driving nearly half our total economic activity. Yet small business owners across the country lack sufficient capital to succeed, grow and scale. The Kenan Institute has conducted a new analysis on the role of the Small Business Administration’s SBIC program in providing capital to the often-overlooked small businesses operating outside of metropolitan centers, as well as those owned by women and underrepresented minorities. You can access an overview of our findings, as well as key takeaways for business and policy leaders, by clicking below.
How will sweeping changes in primary care services and providers affect the primary care workforce? We examine this question as well as how well the increasing demand for these services can be met in the future.
With direct care facilities and workers in crisis, we explore trends behind the labor shortages in the industry as well as a menu of solutions that could possibly alleviate the issue.
With growing prominence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) issues, we witness enhanced scrutiny of the public stance and statements of organizational actors. For example, two such statements by Tucker Carlson, known for his primetime show on Fox News, one on immigration (2018) and the other on the Black Lives Matter (2020) movement, pushed nongovernmental organizations, such as Media Matters, to sociopolitical activism by putting pressures on advertisers to boycott the show. This mingling of DEI, sociopolitical activism, and associated economic effects raises a critical research question: what is the economic consequence of DEI stances that arouse sociopolitical activism and what are the underlying mechanisms for the economic consequences?
First, the good news. Given what we know about current economic conditions, it is likely that the consumer inflation rate has peaked in the U.S. for the current cycle. Recent inflation reports on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Implicit Price Deflator, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure, show a jump to new 40-year highs in March but signs of moderation in coming months. For example, consumer goods with very large 12-month cost runups such as used cars and food away from home are starting to see prices moderate. Likewise, prices of important household goods like apparel, furnishings, prescription drugs and recreation commodities (think TVs and Pelotons) are flattening. Furthermore, some important energy prices such as crude oil and gasoline have stabilized in April after jumps in the first quarter. So, while inflation will surely remain elevated for some time, it is unlikely to get much worse.
The debate surrounding returns of private equity vs. public markets continues with a recent paper by AQR. What do the latest data tell us?
As the middle class shrinks and consumer debt, education and healthcare costs increase, a national conversation has focused on the wealth gap within America and the realities of the American Dream.
Some analysis indicates companies with diverse executive teams drive more revenue and are more likely to experience higher profits relative to their nondiverse peers, yet founding teams for both high-growth startups and the private capital groups that fund them stand in stark contrast to the U.S. working age population. Why? And why should it matter? In this week’s Kenan Insight, Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow Emmanuel Yimfor unpacks statistics on the composition of both high-growth startups and private capital groups, explores the economic and societal implications of their lack of diversity and provides suggestions to facilitate change.
North Carolina’s 100 counties have experienced an uneven pattern of growth and development over the past decade or so, even during the pandemic, when the state was a magnet for migration. At one end, metropolitan and amenity-rich counties captured most of the growth between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021; at the other, 21 counties experienced net out-migration. Given these disparities, the Urban Investment Strategies Center offers an approach using targeted economic development strategies.
Over the last two decades, public and private equity markets have changed dramatically. For instance, the total number of publicly listed firms decreased from more than 7500 in 1997 to approximately 3500 in 2018. This precipitous decline can be attributed to a corresponding sharp drop in the number of IPOs.
A new research paper provides a framework for companies to respond to pressures on issues from global warming and sustainability to child labor and discrimination.
Major strides have been taken in recent years to push toward more sustainable investing practices, yet it remains to be seen if such initiatives are actually meeting their goals. In this Kenan Insight, we look at the challenges of both implementing and measuring the effectiveness of social entrepreneurship and impact investing.
Professor of the Practice of Finance, Director of the Energy Center, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Michael W. Haley Distinguished Professor of Accounting and Area Chair of Accounting, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School