Historically, most businesses have attempted to stay on the sidelines of controversial issues to avoid alienating customers and limit internal discord. But the COVID-19 pandemic (which has disproportionately affected people of color) and rising racial tensions have increased awareness of systemic racism in the U.S. In this Kenan Insight, we explore how business leaders are increasingly taking a stance on diversity and inclusion issues through both internally and externally focused actions and policies.
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.
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.
The widespread adoption of technological advances has made the move to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic a success. In this Kenan Insight, we look at why the switch was such a win, its impact on worker productivity, and what it means in the long term for workers, office spaces and cities.
Following last week’s debate about the overheating economy, Kenan Institute experts return this week for round two – this time focusing on policy. In this week's insight, Kenan Institute’s Executive Director Greg Brown and Chief Economist Gerald Cohen debate the pandemic’s influence on U.S. fiscal policies.
Global Chief Marketing Officer, Prime Video & Amazon Studios
Please join us for an exclusive virtual conversation with Prime Video and Amazon Studios Global Chief Marketing Officer Ukonwa Kuzi-Orizu Ojo (BSBA '97) on Tuesday, April 12. This discussion is part of the Dean’s Speaker Series, hosted by Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Doug Shackelford.
Please join us for an exclusive virtual conversation with North Carolina Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders on Wednesday, February 9. This discussion is part of the Dean’s Speaker Series, hosted by Kenan-Flagler Business School Dean Doug Shackelford.
The 2020 COVID-fueled economic downturn generated what has been referred to as a K-shaped recession, with both big losers (such as restaurants and the hospitality sector) and big winners (such as high tech and online retail). In this Kenan Insight, we explore how a nascent K-shaped recovery will likely affect U.S. businesses and households.
The 2020 U.S. economic downturn fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic generated both big losers (such as restaurants and the hospitality sector) and big winners (such as high tech and online retail), leading economic commentators to call the recession “K-shaped.” As the pandemic evolves in 2021, this K-shaped recovery will go global; though some countries, notably the U.S. and China, are securely tethered to the largest economic booster rocket ever built, a sizable swath of the world will continue to suffer weak growth.
The health and economic data from this past week brought both good and bad news about the state of affairs in North Carolina. Health data suggest the growth in new cases is slowing, that hospital capacity remains available and that we might be getting a better handle on identification. While this is certainly encouraging in the battle against the pandemic, a similar levelling off in business activity does not bode as well for the economy. In this week’s commentary we seek to unpack some of the details in the data to understand what may be a new plateau.
The authors provide an overview of the main accomplishments of private equity since the emergence of leveraged buyouts in the 1980s, and of the challenges now facing the industry—challenges that have been encountered before during three major growth waves and two full boom-and-bust cycles.
We characterize how wishful thinking affects the interpretation of information in economies with strategic and external effects. While players always choose to exhibit overconfidence in private information, their interpretation of public information depends on how non-fundamental volatility affects payoffs. When volatility increases payoffs, players may endogenously disagree: some under-react to public news, while others overreact.
North Carolina’s 100 counties have experienced an uneven pattern of growth and development over the past decade or so, even during the pandemic, when the state was a magnet for migration. At one end, metropolitan and amenity-rich counties captured most of the growth between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021; at the other, 21 counties experienced net out-migration. Given these disparities, the Urban Investment Strategies Center offers an approach using targeted economic development strategies.
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.
“Mega-threats”—negative, identity-relevant societal events that receive significant media attention—are frequent occurrences in society, yet the influence of these events on employees remains unclear. We draw on the theory of racialized organizations to explain the process whereby exposure to mega-threats leads to heightened avoidant work behaviors for racial minority employees.
COVID hit North Carolina hard, with 3.1 million cases so far and over 26,000 deaths. Low-income communities in North Carolina were especially hard hit, with higher rates of COVID infections and deaths, sudden loss of jobs with little buffer, disruption of families and communities. In this paper, we conduct a quantitative assessment of COVID-19’s impact on low-income North Carolinians and specifically on a subset of lower income North Carolina counties that are served by the North Carolina Community Action Association (NCCAA).
Recent infrastructure legislation offers an opportunity to focus on how new projects can increase wealth in communities with the greatest needs and minimize harm to the environment, all while supporting the broader economy.
Virginia’s rapid population growth over the past three decades has been uneven, creating demographic winners and losers, and masks several demographic headwinds that will constrain future growth and competitiveness if left unaddressed, including slowing rates of total and foreign-born population growth, white population decline, deaths of despair, and declining labor force participation among prime working age males and females in the state.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, two large infrastructure-related bills have been enacted. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law in November 2021, provides funding for a wide range of activities including roads, rail, transit, broadband, water and electrical infrastructure.