Research from UNC Kenan-Flagler Finance Professor Eric Ghysels attaches explicit costs to a model’s classification errors, in this case concerning pretrial detention decisions, avoiding the one-size-fits-all symmetrical cost function of traditional machine learning.
We update an August 2023 piece in which we explain why manufacturing remains essential for economic growth and how manufacturing in the US today incorporates both regional shifts and “stickiness” in traditional strongholds.
Gladys Hall Coates Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Government, UNC School of Government; Director, ncIMPACT Initiative
When the human mind is free to roam, its subjective experience is characterized by a continuously evolving stream of thought. Although there is a technique that captures people’s streams of free thought—free association—its utility for scientific research is undermined by two open questions: (a) How can streams of thought be quantified? (b) Do such streams predict psychological phenomena?
The growth of the venture capital market should not blind one to its limitations as an engine of innovation. Kenan Institute Distinguished Fellow Josh Lerner lays out three areas of concern worthy of more research.
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor Al Segars and co-author Anselm Beach have written about their new model for developing diversity, equity and inclusion in an organization, the Values/Principles Model, in the most recent issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review. At a time when recognition of DEI’s benefits has become widespread, their approach gives leaders the tools to create real change that will allow their whole companies to prosper. Learn more by clicking below.
Considerable scholarly analysis and media attention has documented the racially disparate impact of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. Constituting 13 percent of the general population, Blacks reportedly account for 25 percent of those that have tested positive and 39 percent of the COVID-related deaths in the United States.
Corporate executives have begun to glimpse the strategic value of incorporating artificial intelligence as an “employee” within their organization. In this Kenan Insight, we explore a framework that outlines the critical elements for harnessing the potential of human-AI working relationships.
A panel from this year's Alternative Investments Conference discusses how venture capital is playing catch-up on ESG investing, "knowing what levers you can pull," and the opportunity for huge growth in this week's Kenan Insight.
More than ever, businesses are tasked with pleasing both shareholders and stakeholders, including employees, customers and even communities. But can it be done? In this week's Kenan Insight, our experts explore the most successful strategies employed by a class of businesses that have been navigating this debate for generations: family firms.
In organizational psychology research, most theories put forth directional predictions, such as stating that an increase in one construct will result in an increase or decrease in another construct. Such predictions are imprecise, given that they can be confirmed by a wide range of values, and theories that rely on such predictions bear little risk of falsification.
More than four years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine the essential elements that build small-business resilience, emphasizing the importance of personal fortitude and intangible resources in ensuring business survival.
Elon Musk’s bid to purchase Twitter for $44 billion appears to have fallen apart, but the reality of what nearly happened, and still may, will probably be with us for good. Before attempting to terminate the deal, Musk spoke with Twitter employees and discussed his vision to turn the social media platform into the world’s town square. The wealthiest person in the world wanting to own space where people gather to mobilize, to call out injustices and criticize powerful organizations and governments, and to coo at the latest cat videos?
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.
The U.S. spends significantly less on child care than other developed nations, and the consequences of that spending became evident during the pandemic – particularly within underserved communities. In this week’s insight, our experts discuss why the U.S. should prioritize and fund early childhood education and care.
There is no doubt that the COVID-19 crisis has devastated the U.S. economy. But the particulars of this devastation are difficult to gauge, because unique aspects of the of the pandemic distort the data commonly used to assess such situations. In this Kenan Insight, we take a deep dive into the data to learn what it actually tells us about the economic impact of COVID-19, and suggest possibilities for a restart and recovery of the U.S. economy.
Firms are increasingly launching initiatives with explicit social mandates. Often the business case for these initiatives is justified through one critical aspect of human capital management: employee retention. Although prior empirical studies have demonstrated a link between such corporate social initiatives and intermediate employee-related outcomes like motivation and identification with the firm, the relationship between employee participation in these initiatives and retention outcomes has not been investigated.
Using the approach of Ghysels, Santa-Clara, and Valkanov (2005), after correcting a coding error pointed out to us, we find that the Merton model holds over samples that exclude financial crises, in particular the Great Depression and/or the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the resulting Great Recession. We find that a simple flight to safety indicator separates the traditional risk-return relationship from financial crises which amount to fundamental changes in that relationship.
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.