Professor of Economics and Academic Unit Head, Charlene Kalenkoski is the co-author of a paper titled "Teen Social Interactions and Well-being during the COVID-19 Pandemic." The paper has now been published online in Review of Economics of the Household.

In it, Kalenkoski and her co-author examine how the time teens spent alone and with parents, friends and others changed during the pandemic. Their research sheds light on how the social isolation of the pandemic disrupted what is for teens a crucial period of development. They also examine the changes that occurred in the time spent on various activities and where those activities took place.

Assistant professor of Finance Xu Niu had his paper, "The Battle Between Activist Hedge Funds and Labor Unions," accepted for publication by the Journal of Empirical Finance.

Among Niu's key findings in the paper are that activist hedge funds are more likely to target unionized firms, a tendency associated with higher short-term stock performance. Niu also points out that firms targeted by hedge funds experience an erosion of employee satisfaction, which is accompanied by an increased likelihood of unionization.

View the pre-proof paper

Associate Professor of Finance and Business Law Carl Ullrich had a paper, "The reliability pricing model and coal-fired generators in PJM," accepted for publication in Energy Economics.

In their paper Carl and his co-authors show that the effects of environmental regulations show up in market prices -- specifically, in the Reliability Pricing Model (RPM) of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) wholesale electricity market.

Over the past 20 years, there has been a significant decline in the number of coal-fired generators in the United States. Lower natural gas prices, increased environmental regulations, and newer, more efficient generators have all been cited as reasons for this decline.

Angela M. Smith, associate professor of Economics, is this year's Madison Scholar. Angela describes her work as falling almost exclusively within the realm of experimental economics -- a field of inquiry that nevertheless affords her great flexibility in terms of the topics and situations which can be explored. She says that one of the most common themes of her experimentation consists of efforts to identify situations in which behavior deviates from theoretical predictions and to develop explanations for the observed deviations.

Tim Ozcan, associate professor of Marketing, recently had a paper published by the Journal of Business Research. In it he reported that consumers who achieve numerically round subgoals perceive a higher chance of accomplishing their superordinate goals compared to those who achieve numerically non-round subgoals.

Several different methods were employed to demonstrate this effect, including the presentation of preliminary evidence from a large secondary dataset, as well as a field experiment, a simulated game task and numerous controlled experiments.

Professor of Business Management Fariss Mousa and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Scott Gallagher had their paper, “Managing conflicting agendas: serial entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the IPO process,” published in the International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal.

Through their research they found that despite seasoned entrepreneurs having more experience, it takes them longer to reach the IPO stage. Research suggests that serial entrepreneurs hinder the efforts of venture capitalists to increase the value of the firm’s IPO.