As The Wall Street Journal reported this week, Congress is gearing up for a potential showdown with the largest tech companies in the U.S. And with a bipartisan group of representatives pushing for legislation that would dismantle the monopoly power of Big Tech, this week's Kenan Insight revisits research on how regulating Amazon, Apple and others may be key to reviving the economies of America’s held-back cities and regions.
The jumps in the inflation rate over the last few months have been larger and longer-lasting than expected. For much of 2022 economic forecasters, including those at the Federal Reserve, assumed that higher inflation rates would be short-lived—or “transitory” using the preferred jargon of the day. Inflation was expected to start shifting back towards the Fed’s 2% target as supply-chain bottlenecks were resolved and a pandemic-induced shift in demand for consumer goods swung back toward consumer services. Instead, recent inflation prints have set 40-year records and we are seeing more discussion about the possibility of a “wage-price” spiral.
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.
Much attention is being focused on energy supply security issues, especially for European oil and gas supplies. The latest Russian decision to halt natural gas sales to Poland and Bulgaria has reinforced that continent’s awareness of the perils of unreliable suppliers. Europe’s short-term focus is on sanctioning Russia and then backfilling the forgone oil and gas from other sources.
Kenan Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen discusses the power of productivity and what that means for the U.S. economy.
Kenan Institute Chief Economist Gerald Cohen kicks off 2025 with a rundown of five issues that will be top of mind for business leaders and policymakers, accompanied by his analysis.
This event has been postponed to an as-yet undetermined date. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and will post information about rescheduling as soon as we have it. Please continue to check the website for updates.
Business owners and leaders need real ways to think about diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workplace. No matter how early you are in your business, building a strong foundation of inclusivity should always be top priority. Join Launch Chapel Hill to discuss how to define workplace inclusion in your business. This session will be led by Dee McDougal, Senior Vice President, Diversity & Inclusion at Pacific Western Bank.
Cryptocurrency has its critics, but it’s becoming an increasingly mainstream option for retail and institutional investors alike. In this Kenan Insight, we share some thoughts from former Co-president of Morgan Stanley Zoe Cruz and Rethinc. Labs Faculty Director Eric Ghysels on whether crypto has reached a tipping point for adoption by individual investors.
As the U.S. economy begins to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and businesses grapple with ongoing labor shortages, the debate around increasing the federal minimum wage – which hasn’t budged in over a decade – has returned to the fore. In this Kenan Insight, we examine whether now is the right time to raise the standard minimum, why these benefits may come at a cost, and what approach might work best given the inevitable tradeoffs.
Cryptocurrency has its critics, but it’s becoming an increasingly mainstream option for retail and institutional investors alike. In this Kenan Insight, we share some thoughts from former Co-president of Morgan Stanley Zoe Cruz and Rethinc. Labs Faculty Director Eric Ghysels on whether crypto has reached a tipping point for adoption by individual investors.
Firms continue to strive for greater representation on corporate boards. One California law, attempting to mandate such greater representation, has encountered a recent setback. Two experts discuss obstacles to more diverse corporate leadership and offer approaches for surmounting them.
Apprenticeship programs have not historically been successful in reaching a diverse array of people. A report by the institute-affiliated NCGrowth examines trends within apprenticeship and offers a set of best practices to continue diversifying these programs
Outsourcing, which involves business-to-business arm’s-length exchanges with suppliers to supplement in-house activities, has grown internationally in scope with the advent of offshore outsourcing in which firms outsource business processes to be executed by suppliers in other countries.
On Wednesday, January 31, the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise welcomed Michael S. Piwowar, Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as part of the Dean’s Speaker Series.
We examine firms' technological investments during an industry's incubation stage—the period between a technological breakthrough and the first instance of its commercialization. We develop stylized findings regarding knowledge evolution preceding product evolution in an industry's life cycle, and highlight the importance for managers to think about “success” and “failure” across multiple yardsticks of performance, rather than only as product commercialization.
Using a nested multiple-case study of participating ventures, directors, and mentors of eight of the original U.S. accelerators, we explore how accelerators’ program designs influence new ventures’ ability to access, interpret, and process the external information needed to survive and grow. Through our inductive process, we illuminate the bounded-rationality challenges that may plague all ventures and entrepreneurs—not just those in accelerators—and identify the particular organizational designs that accelerators use to help address these challenges, which left unabated can result in suboptimal performance or even venture failure.
We explore the impact of Knightian uncertainty on contracting within a multi-layered firm. We study a setting where, absent uncertainty, division managers should be paid based on their division performance, but not other divisions' performance.
In his most recent paper James H. Johnson, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, addresses the challenges facing senior African Americans in accessing long-term care.
The tremendous growth in cryptocurrency trading has included frequent pump-and-dump (P&D) schemes. The resulting volatility has raised both excitement and concern about exploitation and fraud. Unlike the stock market, where P&D schemes can last for months, in the cryptocurrency market the price and volume inflations last just minutes, making it is almost impossible for those not in the pump group to participate. P&Ds are organized through pump groups who communicate through heavily encrypted message platforms. Investors learn about the groups through ads on social media. Our research examines 500 cryptocurrency P&D schemes to better understand their timing, characteristics and impact. As cryptocurrency exchanges think about regulating P&Ds, our researchers seek to understand who is currently benefiting and what these “cryptobloggers” do to the health of the cryptocurrency market.