The most important economic challenge of our time is the large, and growing, wealth gap. Increasing income disparities and declining opportunities have diminished America's middle class. On Nov. 6-7, the Closing the Wealth Gap conference was held at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School in Chapel Hill.
Reactions from Wall Street and Main Street to how a company addresses – or doesn’t address – issues of gender inequality and sexual harassment affect social media sentiment, brand equity and market value, new research shows.
A look at stakeholder capitalism – the idea that businesses would improve societal outcomes by focusing on a mandate broader than that which benefits shareholders alone – starts with the existing best-practice model: shareholder capitalism. This model, while not perfect, can produce the optimal amount of goods and services at the lowest cost. This week, Kenan Institute experts explore ways to improve it and examine whether stakeholder capitalism is ready to take its place.
The debate surrounding returns of private equity vs. public markets continues with a recent paper by AQR. What do the latest data tell us?
Battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the precipitous drop in the economy and continuing racial justice protests, American colleges and universities are facing their most challenging period ever as they head into the fall semester. In this Kenan Insight, we explore what the long-term impact of such forces will be on higher education, and what policy and strategic actions might help mitigate the damage.
Google Scholar tells us that, over a quarter of a million studies examine the relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance. Aguinis et al. (2018) take much of that work to task. Observing that the distribution of CEO compensation is skewed, they question any work that assumes a normal distribution. Correcting the flaw, Aguinis et al. (2018) conduct their own investigation of this important relationship. Contrary to previous work, they find no consistent empirical relationship between pay and performance. The authors review and discuss their work with a clear eye on its implications for improving our understanding of these relationships.
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.
Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities are ushering in significant changes in how enterprises operate – and raising a host of questions for organizations. In this Kenan Insight, we explore how changing the organizational mindset to treat AI as an “employee” may pave the way to fully reaping the benefits of AI systems.
To attract skilled talent in an evolving economic landscape, public and private sector leaders must understand the factors – economic, social and political conditions – that push and pull people and drive relocation.
AI. CRISPR. mRNA. Key components of the rapidly expanding alphabet soup of technologies driving a boom in healthcare innovation. In this Kenan Insight, we explore why the 2021 Trends in Entrepreneurship Report names emerging technology in the healthcare industry as a key trend, along with some of the challenges that come with fast-moving technological advancements.
Designing modern call centers requires an understanding of callers’ patience and abandonment behavior. Using a Cox regression analysis, we show that callers’ abandonment behavior may differ based on their contact history, and changes across their different contacts.
To increase revenue or improve customer service, companies are increasingly personalizing their product or service offerings based on their customers' history of interactions. In this paper, we show how call centers can improve customer service by implementing personalized priority policies.
Most organizational leaders have come to recognize that hiring and retaining a diverse workforce is a business imperative. But many struggle to achieve their diversity goals. In this Kenan Insight, we explore how organizations can measure their “organizational equity” — that is, their internal distribution of power and resources — and build a diverse workforce that leads to greater organizational success.
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?
The Kenan Scholars program has exploratory funds allocated for scholars to attend conferences and other activities that contribute to their education in a meaningful way. Because of the exploratory fund, senior scholar Emily Arnold attended the 2019 Solutions for Affordable Housing Conference in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 3 and 4.
Real Estate investments continue to rise in importance in the alternative asset space. But much is still to be learned about their value and performance.
The slope carry takes a long (short) position in the long-term bonds of countries with steeper (flatter) yield curves. The traditional carry takes a long (short) position in countries with high (low) short-term rates. We document that: (i) the slope carry return is slightly negative (strongly positive) in the pre (post) 2008 period, whereas it is concealed over longer samples; (ii) the traditional carry return is lower post-2008; and (iii) expected global growth and inflation declined post-2008.
We examine the effect of higher wages on firm performance during the 2008 financial crisis. To identify variation in wages, we rely on heterogeneity in the timing of long-term wage agreements for a sample of UK firms. We instrument for firms signing long-term agreements overlapping with the crisis by the presence of a contract signed in 2006 or earlier and expiring before September 2008.
With homebuying season here, many Americans are eyeing the housing market, looking for signs of improvement. Will unfavorable conditions abate and the number of affordable homes begin to rise?
Adjunct Professor - MBA@UNC | PhD Candidate in Strategy & Entrepreneurship, UNC-Chapel Hill