Abby Staker (BSBA '20) reflects on her journey writing a senior thesis as part of the Kenan Scholars program.
Time series regression analysis relies on the heteroskedasticity- and auto-correlation-consistent (HAC) estimation of the asymptotic variance to conduct proper inference. This paper develops such inferential methods for high-dimensional time series regressions.
The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 exemplifies a worst-case scenario for federal, state, and local disaster preparedness planning and illustrates some of the United States’ fundamental public health infrastructure flaws. While stay-at-home orders and economic shutdowns initially depressed disease spread, they harmed businesses and organizations, threatened individuals’ livelihoods, and negatively impacted community well-being. National standards for COVID-19 management tools and protocols were not available when needed, and state, local, and federal guidance differed, and often conflicted, in ways that confused the public and created economic uncertainty.
We reassess whether and to what degree the hiring, development, and promotion decisions of S&P 500® companies have led to misrepresentation of and bias against their minority executives. Instead of the US population benchmark that has conventionally been used to measure misrepresentation, and from such misrepresentation attribute the presence and magnitude of racial bias and discrimination, we measure misrepresentation in US executives using the benchmark of the racial/ethnic densities (RAEDs) of their college cohort peers.
North Carolina adopted its County Tiers System to direct economic support toward struggling counties. An examination shows the nearly 40-year-old system is increasingly misaligned with both economic reality and stakeholder needs.
Class of 2022 Kenan Scholar Cara Kuuskvere shares her experience utilizing the Kenan Scholars Exploratory Funds to enroll in Leading Green Associate Training through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) during her winter break.
On February 5, Odum Institute Assistant Director for Education and Qualitative Methods Paul Mihas introduced our Kenan Scholars to qualitative research methods and described resources available to them at the Odum Institute,
The COVID-19 pandemic increased economic inequities in a number of ways, including in access to external capital – and while 2020 marked a break-out year for venture-backed firms, the pandemic hit many main street businesses hard. In this Kenan Insight, we explore the forces driving the haves and have-nots in this new economic climate, as well as actionable policy solutions as government support programs wind down.
In this week’s commentary, we’ll discuss North Carolina’s health statistics and current developments in the economic landscape, and offer some thoughts on the reopening of schools and universities.
In this week’s commentary, we’ll discuss the robustness of the improved health statistics, what the president’s executive orders mean for the economy and the first estimates from our undetected cases model. We do this with an eye toward what could be impending deterioration on both the pandemic and economic front.
In this week’s data commentary we’ll provide our usual review of health statistics, but primarily focus on what is an increasingly perilous juncture for both the U.S. and North Carolina economies. Specifically, the failure of Congress to agree on a new stimulus plan is feeling more and more like a game of chicken, with U.S. households standing between the onrushing vehicles. Hopefully, there is still time to slam the brakes on the rhetoric and approach the problem with solid economic logic.
Remote work seems likely to continue in a post-pandemic world, if employees have their say. In this week's insight, our experts highlight how businesses can rethink workspaces and better engage and involve employees in the office and those working from home.
“Every business I enter is looking for employees” was a common refrain in our Carolina Across 100 survey, with 79% of the total survey sample selecting employment/staffing concerns among their top three negative impacts of COVID-19 on their organization. Is the staffing shortage just a function of COVID-19 that will correct itself as COVID abates or are there larger demographic and economic forces at work? The answer is a bit of both.
Concerns about further supply-chain troubles are on the rise. Just a few months ago the “temporary disruptions” stemming from covid were predicted to work themselves out in 2022. However, businesses are now faced with the possibility of disruptions much more severe than those experienced to date. These stem from two sources: interrupted supplies in essential raw materials and agricultural commodities resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a rapid (and massive) spread of COVIC-19 in China resulting in suspensions to manufacturing operations there.
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 emerging theory-based view depicts entrepreneurs as sophisticated thinkers who form, update, and act on rich causal theories. In support of this view, recent empirical work has demonstrated both (a) the value of theories as well as (b) the importance of experimentation for testing and refining theories. Yet, the process by which entrepreneurs initially form these theories remains largely unobserved.
We quantify the causal effects of humorous banter among three rival fast-food brands on Twitter in the context of a new product launched by one of the rivals (viz, the focal or entrant brand). We argue that Twitter banter can cause a surge in online search that in turn leads to higher offline sales.
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?
We consider an electric utility company that serves retail electricity customers over a discrete-time horizon. In each period, the company observes the customers' consumption as well as high-dimensional features on customer characteristics and exogenous factors. A distinctive element of our work is that these features exhibit three types of heterogeneity—over time, customers, or both. Based on the consumption and feature observations, the company can dynamically adjust the retail electricity price at the customer level.