Higher education is in crisis and its leaders are handicapped by a lack of reliable data. We are entering an era that will require more informed decision making in higher education and unfortunately the underlying data, especially benchmarking performance information, do not exist to support such strategic thinking and change.
Food retail is facing massive challenges at the hands of the COVID-19 crisis and the response has led to an acceleration in the shift to go digital. Grocers are leaning strongly into online sales and producers are using new technology to become more nimble when it comes to whom they supply and how they get to market. Join our retail faculty and industry experts as they discuss the development of new online platforms and delivery options, the management of supplier relationships, evolving customer demand and expectations and changing personnel needs and safety. Moderator: Bill Putsis, Professor of Marketing, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Panelists: Kristopher Keller, Assistant Professor of Marketing, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Jody Kalmbach, Group Vice President of Product Experience, Kroger Mark Baum, Chief Collaboration Officer & Senior Vice President of Industry Relations at FMI, Food Industry Association
Each year, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise distinguishes a small group of incoming undergraduate and MBA students as Kenan Scholars. Students are selected for their superior scholarship and genuine interest in putting the private sector to work for the public good. Scholars supplement classroom learning with internships, field trips, research experiences, networking and mentoring. They engage with prominent leaders in business, academia, policy and government to gain real-world experiences that advance their problem-solving and leadership abilities. The Kenan Scholars Program enhances the Carolina experience and prepares students to succeed in a diverse world and interconnected global economy. Learn more: kenaninstitute.unc.edu/scholars
Each year, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise distinguishes a small group of incoming undergraduate and MBA students as Kenan Scholars. Students are selected for their superior scholarship and genuine interest in putting the private sector to work for the public good. Scholars supplement classroom learning with internships, field trips, research experiences, networking and mentoring. They engage with prominent leaders in business, academia, policy and government to gain real-world experiences that advance their problem-solving and leadership abilities. The Kenan Scholars Program enhances the Carolina experience and prepares students to succeed in a diverse world and interconnected global economy.
Each year, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise distinguishes a small group of incoming undergraduate and MBA students as Kenan Scholars. Students are selected for their superior scholarship and genuine interest in putting the private sector to work for the public good. Scholars supplement classroom learning with internships, field trips, research experiences, networking and mentoring. They engage with prominent leaders in business, academia, policy and government to gain real-world experiences that advance their problem-solving and leadership abilities. The Kenan Scholars Program enhances the Carolina experience and prepares students to succeed in a diverse world and interconnected global economy.
Each year, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise distinguishes a small group of incoming undergraduate and MBA students as Kenan Scholars. Students are selected for their superior scholarship and genuine interest in putting the private sector to work for the public good. Scholars supplement classroom learning with internships, field trips, research experiences, networking and mentoring. They engage with prominent leaders in business, academia, policy and government to gain real-world experiences that advance their problem-solving and leadership abilities. The Kenan Scholars Program enhances the Carolina experience and prepares students to succeed in a diverse world and interconnected global economy. Learn more: kenaninstitute.unc.edu/scholars
Q&A featuring Nasdaq Executive Vice President for Global Information Services Lauren Dillard, Institute for Private Capital Research Director Greg Brown, Maryland State Retirement and Pension System CIO Andrew Palmer, BlackRock Portfolio Manager - Managing Director Julia Wittlin and StepStone Group Partner Thomas Keck.
Q&A featuring Nasdaq Executive Vice President for Global Information Services Lauren Dillard, BlackRock Portfolio Manager - Managing Director Julia Wittlin, Maryland State Retirement and Pension System CIO Andrew Palmer and StepStone Group Partner Thomas Keck.
Q&A featuring Nasdaq Executive Vice President for Global Information Services Lauren Dillard, BlackRock Portfolio Manager - Managing Director Julia Wittlin, StepStone Group Partner Thomas Keck, Maryland State Retirement and Pension System CIO Andrew Palmer and Institute for Private Capital Research Director Greg Brown.
In March 2019, the UNC Energy Center hosted the New Technologies & Economics for Carbon Capture/Sequestration Conference at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The conference brought together a highly select group of energy executives and professionals which focused their discussion on the potential for early commercialization of these technologies.
Each year, the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise distinguishes a small group of incoming undergraduate and MBA students as Kenan Scholars. Students are selected for their superior scholarship and genuine interest in putting the private sector to work for the public good. Scholars supplement classroom learning with internships, field trips, research experiences, networking and mentoring. They engage with prominent leaders in business, academia, policy and government to gain real-world experiences that advance their problem-solving and leadership abilities. The Kenan Scholars Program enhances the Carolina experience and prepares students to succeed in a diverse world and interconnected global economy.
U.S. stocks are more volatile than stocks of similar foreign firms. A firm's stock return volatility can be higher for reasons that contribute positively (good volatility) or negatively (bad volatility) to shareholder wealth and economic growth. We find that the volatility of U.S. firms is higher mostly because of good volatility
Using a large sample of nonfinancial firms from 47 countries, we examine the effect of derivative use on firm risk and value. We control for endogeneity by matching users and nonusers on the basis of their propensity to use derivatives. We also use a new technique to estimate the effect of omitted variable bias on our inferences. We find strong evidence that the use of financial derivatives reduces both total risk and systematic risk. The effect of derivative use on firm value is positive but more sensitive to endogeneity and omitted variable concerns. However, using derivatives is associated with significantly higher value, abnormal returns, and larger profits during the economic downturn in 2001–2002, suggesting that firms are hedging downside risk.
We explore the determinants of equity price risk of nonfinancial corporations. Operating and asset characteristics are by far the most important determinants of risk. For the median firm, financial risk accounts for only 15% of observed stock price volatility. Furthermore, financial risk has declined over the last 3 decades, indicating that any upward trend in equity volatility was driven entirely by economic risk factors. This explains why financial distress (as opposed to economic distress) was surprisingly uncommon in the nonfinancial sector during the 2007–2009 crisis even as measures of equity volatility reached unprecedented highs.
Measuring the impact of political risk on investment projects is one of the most vexing issues in international business. One popular approach is to assume that the sovereign yield spread captures political risk and to augment the project discount rate by this spread. We show that this approach is flawed. While the sovereign spread is influenced by political risk, it also reflects other risks that are likely included in the valuation analysis — leading to the double counting of risks. We propose to use “political risk spreads” to undo the double counting in the evaluation of international investment projects.
We propose a novel approach to measuring firm-level risk exposures and costs of equity. Using a simple consumption-based asset pricing model that explains nearly two-thirds of the variation in average returns across 55 anomaly portfolios, we map the relation between exposures to consumption risk and portfolio-level characteristics. We use this relation to calculate exposures to consumption risk at the firm level and show that the calculated consumption risk exposures yield portfolios with large differences in average returns and ex post consumption risk exposures consistent with those predicted by our calculated betas.
Despite decades of research on how, why, and when companies manage earnings, there is a paucity of evidence about the geographic location of earnings management within multinational firms. In this study, we examine where companies manage earnings using a sample of 2,067 U.S. multinational firms from 1994 to 2009. We predict and find that firms with extensive foreign operations in weak rule of law countries have more foreign earnings management than companies with subsidiaries in locations where the rule of law is strong. We also find some evidence that profitable firms with extensive tax haven subsidiaries manage earnings more than other firms and that the earnings management is concentrated in foreign income. Apart from these results, we find that most earnings management takes place in domestic income, not foreign income.
Hydrocarbon derived from fast pyrolysis of plantation wood is a potential feedstock for the production of transportation fuels. Unfortunately, the cost to produce and upgrade this feedstock is highly uncertain, and its current technological state is not competitive with crude oil. Additional R&D will be needed to achieve the significant cost reductions required for competitiveness. Significant technical hurdles must be overcome to achieve a commercially ready, cost competitive technology. This paper identifies the most promising areas for the needed future research.
The process for producing advanced bio-fuels from woody biomass using fast pyrolysis technology is in an early stage of development. Whether it will offer favorable economics versus future petroleum-derived fuels or other advanced bio-fuels is not clear at this time; however, a study of the value chain from growth to final distribution of drop-in bio-fuels has highlighted several factors that will have major impact on ultimate economics.
We propose a new, valuation-based measure of world equity market segmentation. While we observe decreased levels of segmentation in many countries, the level of segmentation remains significant in emerging markets. We characterize the factors that account for variation in market segmentation both through time as well as across countries. Both a country's regulation with respect to foreign capital flows and certain nonregulatory factors are important. In particular, we identify a country's political risk profile and its stock market development as two additional local segmentation factors as well as the U.S. corporate credit spread as a global segmentation factor.