The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), mainly descendants of those who managed to avoid being forced on the Trail of Tears evacuation to Oklahoma in the 1830s, is based within the 56,000 acre Qualla Boundary, located in Jackson, Swain, and Haywood Counties. According to tribal estimates, the EBCI has approximately 14,500 members. Approximately 60 percent of those live within the Boundary. Directly and indirectly, the EBCI is dependent upon Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, located in Jackson County near Cherokee, for much of its income. The casino has an important economic impact upon the region which extends beyond the Qualla Boundary and beyond the enrolled members of the tribe. This report describes the impact of the casino on the region and analyzes the routes of its economic impact.
North Carolina was one of the nation’s most rapidly growing states during the first decade of the new millennium. Most of the growth came from migration—movers from other states and abroad. Combined with a more general aging in place of the resident population, newcomers are dramatically changing the state’s demography. But undergirding this demographic dynamism are major geographical, socio-economic, and racial/ethnic disparities in the human condition in our state, which require immediate attention if we are to thrive and prosper in the years ahead.
This white paper develops a demographic profile of the elderly population in the Carolinas1 and presents the results of a literature search which identified both promising initiatives and programmatic gaps where new and innovative efforts are needed to foster and facilitate successful aging in place for seniors. As a launch pad for future discussion around defining The Duke Endowment’s (TDE) role in this space moving forward, a concluding section highlights strategies worthy of consideration for promoting successful aging in the Carolinas.
Older adults prefer to age in their homes rather than in an institution. However, in order to successfully age in place, age-friendly modifications are usually necessary to prevent life-threatening accidental falls and exposure to other environmental risks or hazards that unfortunately are all too common among older adults living in their own homes today.
The behavioral response to public disclosure of income tax returns figures prominently in policy debates about its advisability. Although supporters stress that disclosure encourages tax compliance, policy debates proceed in the absence of empirical evidence about this, and any other, claimed behavioral impact.
We undertake the first large-sample analysis of foreign tax holiday participation by U.S. firms.
We empirically investigate the effect of uncertainty on corporate hiring. Using novel data from the labor market for MBA graduates, we show that uncertainty regarding how well job candidates fit with a firm’s industry hinders hiring and that firms value probationary work arrangements that provide the option to learn more about potential full-time employees.
We document that prior portfolio choices influence investors’ expectations about asset values, and their future choices. We find that people update more from information consistent with their prior choices, leading to sticky portfolios over time.
Millions of employees face work schedules and wages that change frequently as firms try to match labor to demand. Here, we use personnel records from the retail industry to examine whether workers’ income precariousness impacts firm performance.
This paper examines how the international demand for luxury consumption affects the real estate market in global hotspots.
A risk-averse agent can sell claims to an asset of uncertain value to investors who have private information. When investors can choose how much information to acquire, the agent optimally issues information-sensitive securities in each market (e.g., debt and equity).
Financial markets reveal information through which firm managers increase the value of equity, e.g., by improving investment decisions. With debt, however, such decisions are not necessarily socially efficient. We demonstrate that investors’ endogenous information acquisition, acting through this feedback channel, attenuates risk-shifting but amplifies debt overhang.
While call centers have recently invested in callback technology, the impact of this innovation on callers’ behavior and call center performance has been less clearly understood. Using call center data from a US commercial bank, we perform an empirical study of callers’ decisionmaking process in the presence of a callback option.
Queues are an inherent outcome of many service systems. Because waiting in queue is typically perceived as negative, customers may choose either to not enter a queue if the length is too long (balk) or exit a queue prior to receiving service (renege).
Does macroeconomic uncertainty increase or decrease aggregate growth and asset prices? To address this question, we decompose aggregate uncertainty into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ volatility components, associated with positive and negative innovations to macroeconomic growth.
We examine empirically and theoretically the relation between firms’ risk and distance to consumers in a production network. We document two novel facts: firms farther away from consumers have higher risk premiums and higher exposure to aggregate productivity. We quantitatively explain these findings using a general equilibrium model featuring a multilayer production process.
This paper investigates changes in firm spending following changes in shareholder taxes. We show that firms with less elastic demand for equity capital will expand operations less than other firms following shareholder tax cuts. Since financial constraint is a factor that diminishes a firms demand elasticity for capital, we predict that financially constrained firms expand less than other companies following shareholder tax reductions.
Although both businessmen and scholars agree that the practice of corporate finance and corporate strategy should be closely coordinated and logically consistent, a large gap exists between the two functions. Although MBA programs routinely cover both subjects, they employ very different analytical and decision tools and the interaction between the two bodies of knowledge rarely receives the attention it deserves. The resulting Finance-Strategy gap can lead strategically oriented firms to de-emphasize or even discard classic finance techniques such as Net Present Value (NPV).
Hospital emergency departments (EDs) provide around-the-clock medical care and as such are generally modeled as nonterminating queues. However, from the care provider’s point of view, ED care is not a never-ending process, but rather occurs in discrete work shifts and may require passing unfinished work to the next care provider at the end of the shift.
We investigate the influence of bank competition on agency costs by examining whether earnings management in the form of loan loss provision smoothing increases as the wedge between control rights and cash-flow rights increases.