AI Research Fellow, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise; former Director of AI Research, KPMG AI Center of Excellence; Vice President, Watson Engineering, IBM
In a recent paper, “Demystifying Illiquid Assets – Expected Returns for Private Equity,” Ilmanen, Chandra and McQuinn (of AQR) give a perspective on the past, present, and expected future performance of private equity. They conclude that “private equity does not seem to offer as attractive a net-of-fee return edge over public market counterparts as it did 15-20 years ago from either a historical or forward-looking perspective.” This analysis provides our perspective based on more recent and, we think, more reliable data and performance measures – the historical perspective is more positive than Ilmanen et al. portray.
Accounting rules, through their interactions with capital regulations, affect financial institutions’ trading behavior. The insurance industry provides a laboratory to explore these interactions: life insurers have greater flexibility than property and casualty insurers to hold speculative-grade assets at historical cost, and the degree to which life insurers recognize market values differs across U.S. states. During the financial crisis, insurers facing a lesser degree of market value recognition are less likely to sell downgraded asset-backed securities. To improve their capital positions, these insurers disproportionately resort to gains trading, selectively selling otherwise unrelated bonds with high unrealized gains, transmitting shocks across markets.
We provide empirical evidence for the existence, magnitude, and economic cost of stigma associated with banks borrowing from the Federal Reserve's Discount Window (DW) during the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The collapse of the securitization market during the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis resulted from investors’ concern with the value of securitized assets and securities issued by special purpose entities (SPEs). Research has shown that prior to the Crisis, investors valued equity of sponsor-originator banks (S-Os) as if there were an implicit guarantee extended to SPE creditors that would be fully honored. We predict that the Crisis caused investors to value S-O equity as if such guarantees would not be honored.
We examine the link between endowment investment performance and the expertise of university board members. Harnessing detailed information on 11,019 members for 579 universities, we find that expertise in alternatives and larger professional networks are associated with higher allocations to alternatives and better investment results.
We develop a multi-period theoretical model to characterize the relationship between a publication that ranks universities and prospective attendees -- high school students -- who might view the ranking and use it to help decide which university to attend.
We examine the links between human capital and endowment investing. Harnessing detailed information on university endowments, we find that higher asset allocations to alternative assets accompany higher levels of human capital in the endowment’s investment process. Moreover, high levels of human capital are linked to larger returns, even on a risk-adjusted basis.
Fireside Chats are a continuing series of talks hosted by Launch Chapel Hill and the UNC Entrepreneurship Center. This series features real talks with real entrepreneurs: the good, the bad and the ugly of their entrepreneurial journey thus far, not just the shiny success stories. Our third chat features Alex Brandwein, the Founder and Owner of Brandwein's Bagels.
Using U.S. venture capital investment data from 1985 to 2008 and qualitative interviews, we examine how group dynamics influence the growth of interorganizational collaborations through the addition of new members.
How long do nascent industries take to become commercially viable? This paper applies historical methods to the two contemporaneous cases of emergence of the airlines and insulin industry in the early 1900s.
Since 2008, the Alternative Investments Conference has served as a forum for private equity, hedge fund, venture capital, and other alternative asset professionals to network, share ideas, and stay abreast of industry trends. The conference provides insights into current topics in alternative investments as well as the opportunity to meet and learn from some of the most influential industry leaders. The UNC Alternative Investments Conference is sponsored by the Institute for Private Capital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
State initiatives that build innovation capacity by supporting local academic research, attracting eminent scholars, and building research excellence have become prominent among the 50 states over the past 30 years. This article focuses on three programs: University Research Grants, Eminent Scholars, and Centers of Excellence.
This paper presents the development, validation, and implementation of a data-driven optimization model designed to dynamically plan the assignment of anesthesiologists across multiple hospital locations within a large multi-specialty healthcare system. We formulate the problem as a multi-stage robust mixed-integer program incorporating on-call flexibility to address demand uncertainty. The optimized dynamic staffing plan has been successfully implemented in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center healthcare system, leading to estimated annual cost savings of 12\% compared to current practice, or about \$800,000 annually.