Director, Institute of African American Research; Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair in Public Policy, UNC College of Arts and Sciences
Program Liaison to the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, NCGrowth
We study the relation between trade credit, asset prices, and production-network linkages. Empirically, firms extending more trade credit earn 7.6% p.a. lower risk premiums and maintain longer relationships with customers.
The data-generating process of productivity growth includes both trend and business-cycle shocks, generating many counterfactuals for prices under full-information. In practice, agents cannot immediately distinguish between the two shocks, leading to "rational confusion": each shock inherits properties of its counterpart.
Experimentation, iteration and improvisational change are all the rage in today’s dynamic business environments. But when evaluating new business opportunities, there’s a paradoxical tension between strategic focus and flexibility that can define or break your busines
Just when you think you have settled on the right strategy, you may need to change. By understanding the particular circumstances and forces shaping your company’s competitive environment, you can choose the most appropriate strategic framework.
We examine empirically and theoretically the relation between firms’ risk and distance to consumers in a production network. We document two novel facts: firms farther away from consumers have higher risk premiums and higher exposure to aggregate productivity. We quantitatively explain these findings using a general equilibrium model featuring a multilayer production process.
This study examines whether the implementation of industry-specific accounting standards helps capital market participants in making decisions about providing capital to firms. We predict and find an, on average, increase in firms’ capital growth in years following implementation of the relevant industry standard.
Faced with demand uncertainty and heterogeneity in a nascent industry, entrants often consider how many customer segments to serve by tailoring the usage breadth of their product portfolios. Portfolio usage breadth is the extent to which products in a portfolio collectively span distinct customer segments. We suggest that when entrants have use experience in contexts that are potential users of the new product, their portfolios exhibit low usage breadth, due to demand-oriented cognition and knowledge.
We introduce a new framework that facilitates term structure modeling with both positive interest rates and flexible time-series dynamics but that is also tractable, meaning amenable to quick and robust estimation. Using both simulations and U.S. historical data, we compare our approach with benchmark Gaussian, stochastic volatility, and shadow rate models, where the latter enforces positive interest rates.
The widespread adoption of technological advances has made the move to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic a success. In this Kenan Insight, we look at why the switch was such a win, its impact on worker productivity, and what it means in the long term for workers, office spaces and cities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in many supply chains, none more so than the healthcare supply chain. What factors have contributed to the alarming lack of readily available healthcare resources in the wake of overwhelming need? And what can be done to prevent such a disconnect from happening again? Professor Brad Staats, faculty director of the UNC Center for the Business of Health, and UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor Jay Swaminathan present the findings of their most recent supply chain research in this week’s Kenan Insight.
We empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on corporate hiring. Using novel data from the labor market for MBA graduates, we show that uncertainty regarding how well job candidates fit with a firm’s industry hinders hiring and that firms value probationary work arrangements that provide the option to learn more about potential full-time employees.
Cryptocurrency has its critics, but it’s becoming an increasingly mainstream option for retail and institutional investors alike. In this Kenan Insight, we share some thoughts from former Co-president of Morgan Stanley Zoe Cruz and Rethinc. Labs Faculty Director Eric Ghysels on whether crypto has reached a tipping point for adoption by individual investors.