Co-brands are strategically advantageous partnerships which can also involve risk. For example, Papa John’s gained access to the largest television audience in the US by sponsoring the National Football League (NFL), but later blamed stagnant sales on how the NFL’s handled players’ well-publicized protests of inequitable policing. What implications did Papa John’s prioritization of sales over fairness have for NFL consumption? To answer this question, the current research tests for changes in Sunday watch party rituals (SWPR), when U.S. consumers gather to socialize while watching live NFL games.
There are few topics in business more current, more covered or more controversial than corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities. Proponents claim a business’s adoption of such principles yields outcomes that benefit all parties, driving win-win scenarios for internal and external stakeholders alike. But critics dismiss ESG implementation as a performative PR ploy, and argue that considering such non-pecuniary factors in corporate decision-making is unsustainable. Our (independent, nonpartisan) findings indicate both sides of the debate are missing the mark – and in hopes of advancing more productive conversations, we introduce below a research-based model for examining the trade-offs of ESG adoption for businesses large and small.
Private equity firms now manage commitments of nearly US$3.4t globally, up from less than US$500b in 2000, and in a significant shift new capital from private markets has surpassed for capital raised in public markets for the first time ever.
This paper evaluates the role of various volatility specifications, such as multiple stochastic volatility (SV) factors and jump components, in appropriate modeling of equity return distributions.
Building resiliency is essential for managing today's distinct risks, yet how do businesses develop the agility and adaptability that would make them more resilient? That's the focus of the 2024 Kenan Institute Grand Challenge.
In honor of University Research Week, Kenan Institute Director of Research Christian Lundblad discusses the importance of research from the perspective of Kenan-Flagler faculty, and how the school's international reputation is inextricably tied to the quality, relevance and creativity of its collective research agenda.
Following 2 decades of discussion, the border adjustment tax (BAT) briefly emerged as part of proposed US corporate tax reform in early 2017. While heavily debated, little empirical evidence exists regarding the BAT. We take advantage of the period during which the BAT was under strong consideration to examine its effects on shareholder value.
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.
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) Policy Fellow - and former Chief Economist of General Motors - Elaine Buckberg outlines how electric vehicles can save the economy as well as the environment.
An inside look at the plenary sessions of the fourth annual Frontiers of Entrepreneurship conference, which convened practitioners, policymakers and academics to discuss the most challenging issues in the field of entrepreneurship and set the agenda for future research and policy.
UNC Kenan-Flagler’s John Gallemore and co-authors found that, among other things, the complexity of the U.S. tax system has a disproportionately negative effect on small, domestic-owned and private firms.
Research from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Assistant Professor of Finance Abhinav Gupta demonstrates how a seemingly small change in the green-card application process holds tremendous significance for millions in the tech industry, made even more relevant by the sector’s current slowdown.
Seventeen states have enacted salary transparency laws to combat pay gaps historically experienced by people of color and women, but the laws take different forms and have produced varying results. How does requiring companies to provide summary salary statistics compare with, for example, preventing companies from asking applicants about their previous salaries? Can such laws actually work against employees? Two experts address these questions and more in this week’s Kenan Insight.
To what extent do consumers boycott in response to corporate tax activities? Anecdotes suggest potential consumer backlash is a meaningful deterrent to corporate tax planning, and the tax literature has developed expectations that these boycotts happen. But empirical evidence on their existence and impact is limited. We undertake a comprehensive study to examine how consumers’ purchase behavior relates to corporate tax activities, triangulating across several designs, samples, and measures.
We propose a method for decomposing private fund portfolio performance into effects from timing, strategy selection, geographic focus, sizing of fund allocation, and fund selection attributes.
Professor Paige Ouimet has been named executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School effective Aug. 21. She succeeds Professor Greg Brown, who led the institute’s growth for eight years.
The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted governments—as well as public and private organizations—to adopt protective measures to prevent the spread of the virus and to mitigate its effects. Included in these measures are the processing of information on the movement of employees and suppliers, as well as sensitive health data. UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Professor of Finance Eric Ghysels leads a discussion examining the differences in data protection laws in the United States and in the European Union (EU). The panel addresses questions as to how we should address the trade-offs of personal privacy protections versus issues of public health, how current data protection laws address these issues and what a re-imagining of these regulations might look like moving forward. Panelists include Information Technology Foundation Vice President and Director of ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation Daniel Castro and Head of Technology and Privacy at the European Data Protection Supervisor’s Office Thomas Zerdick.
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.
This research brief uses data from the 2014-2015 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) migration file to quantify the dividend North Carolina receives from recent movers to the state. We calculate the dividend as the differences in per capita adjusted gross income from those who moved to North Carolina (in-migrants) relative to those who were already living in the state (non-migrants) and relative to those who moved from the state (out-migrants). The dividends from migrants ages 55 and older, especially those settling in eight migration magnet counties (Mecklenburg, Wake, Durham, Buncombe, New Hanover, Brunswick, Cabarrus, and Johnston), are significant. This migration constitutes a strategic opportunity for both business development and job creation in North Carolina communities.
Our national security depends on a safe and secure food supply that is free of contamination, whether unintentional or the result of a terrorist act. In December 2006, Congress and the White House passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA), establishing the goal of near-real-time electronic situational awareness to enhance early detection of, rapid response to, and management of public health threats in order to minimize their impact. Meeting this challenge for food safety depends on our ability to collect, interpret, and disseminate electronic information across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. While events such as 9/11 have elevated the need to share critical intelligence related to security threats, these events have also promoted the proliferation of multiple data systems and tools whose lack of interoperability hinders effective intelligence gathering and timely response. Further, most of the public health and food safety informatics work in the United States—from early detection of food-related outbreaks by local and state health departments to confirmation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through “fingerprinting” of pathogenic contaminants—takes place at different local, state, and federal jurisdictional levels. As a result, large gaps exist in our ability to meet the challenge of food safety in the United States with regard to PAHPA.