As venture capital markets have surged in recent years, early access to capital remains highly localized. We examine changes that can help investors connect with underrepresented entrepreneurs outside traditional funding hubs, from innovative organizations to improvements in transportation.
There’s no escaping the growing interest in environmental, social and corporate governance investing, but not everyone agrees on how to define, measure or report the variety of factors considered under ESG. Professor Laura Starks of the University of Texas McCombs School of Business spoke on the subject in May at the Alternative Investments Conference, sponsored by the Institute for Private Capital. Starks’ keynote speech, highlighted here, examined the knowns and unknowns of ESG investing as well as new regulations that may be coming.
The autonomous car began as an opportunity that required breaking all kinds of limits: engineering, navigation, adjusting to traffic conditions, distinguishing objects, predicting what those objects might do, reacting in time, calculating quickly and juggling a vast number of ever-changing variables. The developers used more and more computer power to address these needs. But the initial bounding limit turned out to be very fundamental; rule-based computers don’t have pattern power.
The Blockchain Club at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School was proud to host the Power of AI and Blockchain conference on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018. The goal of the conference was to expand student and community understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain topics with a focus on application.
This paper studies a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) between a firm and a new renewable energy generator.
We use textual analysis of mandatory accounting filings to develop firm-level, time-varying measures of exposure to individual government agencies. The measures vary predictably across industries and with broad regulatory interventions that expanded the scope and power of different government agencies, but also include substantial firm-specific, time-varying components.
Productivity is the single most important determinant of a society’s standard of living. But how can you gauge it, and why does it matter? In this second report from the American Growth Project, we examine the productivity levels of the 50 largest microeconomies in the United States along with how those productivity levels have shifted during the last 15 years.
In May 2023 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) issued proposed emission standards (the Rules) for existing and new Fossil Fuel-Fired Electricity Generating units. Issued under EPA’s Section 111 authority wherein the Agency asserts the right under the Clean Air Act and subsequent court rulings to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the new standards, if sustained, would accelerate retirements of coal plants. The Rules also impact utility plans to operate existing and to build new natural gas plants.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, institutions of higher education were under immense pressure to live up to their value propositions, with underlying tensions that have been developing for years posing an existential threat to their financial viability. As colleges and universities move classes and operations online in response to the pandemic, questions arise as to what such changes hold not just for now, but for the long-term success of higher education. Can ed tech provide a way forward? Find out in this week’s Kenan Insight.
With direct care facilities and workers in crisis, we explore trends behind the labor shortages in the industry as well as a menu of solutions that could possibly alleviate the issue.
UNC-Chapel Hill’s youth representative at this year’s UN climate conference offers her thoughts on key outcomes, the role of the private sector, and the power of diverse and cross-generational perspectives in finding solutions.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has recently ramped up efforts to keep immigrants from entering the country and force out some who are already here – arguing these to be necessary measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 and protect American jobs. However, in this Kenan Insight, we summarize why these policies risk having exactly the opposite effect, harming the future health, social well-being and economic viability of our nation.
We develop Granger causality tests that apply directly to data sampled at different frequencies. We show that taking advantage of mixed frequency data allows us to better recover causal relationships when compared to the conventional common low frequency approach.
The UNC Energy Center will host a conference on Carbon Capture/Sequestration (CCS). The conference will feature a keynote address from John Minge, who is chairing the National Petroleum Council’s current CCS study. Spokespersons for emerging technology developers, NetPower and ExxonMobil, will present their capabilities and recent efforts to demonstrate their effectiveness. Spokespersons from major oil companies, utilities and the National Renewable Energy Lab will discuss options for economically deploying captured CO2.
In a recent paper published in the Economic Development Journal, James H. Johnson, Jr., Allan M. Parnell and Huan Lian, researchers from the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, assert that an aging population is an opportunity for economic growth.
Renewable energy sources – particularly wind and solar – offer many benefits. One downside, however, is that they only produce electricity when nature cooperates. What are the costs of this intermittency?
Please join us for an exclusive conversation with the President of the Ford Foundation, Darren Walker on Wednesday, March 3. This virtual experience is part of the Dean’s Speaker Series, hosted by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Doug Shackelford.
More than ever, businesses are tasked with pleasing both shareholders and stakeholders, including employees, customers and even communities. But can it be done? In this week's Kenan Insight, our experts explore the most successful strategies employed by a class of businesses that have been navigating this debate for generations: family firms.
COVID-19 and the subsequent rise in work-from-home policies by firms have changed the landscape of skilled labor in the United States. The Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes finds that 15% of employees are working from home full time, as of September 2022. This dramatic increase in remote work has led to an equally dramatic physical migration of workers across the U.S. Census data shows a sharp decline in populations of the largest U.S. cities and increases among midsize cities and smaller metro areas. For example, from 2020 to 2021, the counties of Manhattan (New York County) and San Francisco both saw a decline in their population of 25- to 54-year-olds by nearly 10%.
The new report from the Kenan Institute's American Growth Project takes a look under the hood at productivity - and which U.S. cities have been climbing up the productivity rankings.