Paige Ouimet has worked at UNC-Chapel Hill since 2008 in a variety of roles, most recently as a professor of finance at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and as executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. She examines how financial decisions affect employee stakeholders and how shifts in the U.S. labor force influence corporate financial strategies.

What brought you to Carolina?

I first visited North Carolina when I was in college to go kayaking and just fell in love. It was years later that I had the chance to return to pursue my academic career at UNC-Chapel Hill.

If you had asked me in college, I would have convinced you that my research would take me to remote locations doing fieldwork to untangle the mysteries of biological systems — not business systems. But as it turns out, I didn’t like being a biologist as much as I had expected.

So, instead, I went to work at a non-partisan nonprofit called the Center for Clean Air Policy. And it was there that I met Ned Helme and was introduced to his vision of using market-based solutions to efficiently achieve environmental objectives. That insight opened my mind to new opportunities, and I applied to business schools for graduate school with the idea that markets and the private sector can be a powerful force to achieve benefits for society. I needed to learn more. And I learned a lot more by completing my MBA and then my PhD.

After graduating with my doctorate, I went on the academic job market and feel so lucky to have been given the opportunity to join the faculty at UNC Kenan-Flagler. The people and places here still fascinate me.

How has your role here changed over the years?

I started my career at UNC Kenan-Flagler in 2008 — the same year that the subprime mortgage collapse kicked off the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. It was a terrible time for the economy but a great time to join a renowned finance department at a leading business school. I was a junior professor working on understanding how the decisions that firms make impact workers.

At the time, such questions were considered unconventional within mainstream finance research, making my path forward as a junior professor somewhat precarious. But, if anything, these events made me more confident in my focus on the impacts of corporate actions on labor.

Since then, other major market disruptions and widespread uncertainty driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and now the advent of artificial intelligence continue to raise important questions about the regulation, financial frictions, and incentives that drive corporate decision-making and, in turn, impact the available jobs and the compensation for these jobs. And other academics now agree. In fact, there is now a subfield of finance dedicated to these issues called “labor and finance.” 

What’s kept you at Carolina?

The many ways Carolina gives back to communities inspire and challenge me to do the same. In 2022, Greg Brown, a fellow finance professor at the business school and then executive director of the Kenan Institute, encouraged me to join him at the institute as research director. I exchanged the teaching — which I loved — for translating academic research to a broader audience to positively impact people across the state of North Carolina and beyond.

Since 2023, I have been serving as executive director of the Kenan Institute. While I now spend a lot of time in meetings, I truly enjoy communicating how markets and private industry can be a powerful means to address major problems in society. 

As an example, last spring, I joined a listening tour that took a small group of us from Chapel Hill to meet with more than 90 business and community leaders in three North Carolina counties. I have always thought of myself as introverted, but after meeting, and being inspired by the stories of so many North Carolinians, maybe I am not so introverted after all. The most disparate geographic places can have the most intriguing economic connections that would otherwise go unnoticed.

What contribution are you most proud of?

My work with Carolina finance professor Elena Simintzi and Kailei Ye, a graduate of our PhD program, showing how opioid use impacted workforce outcomes and how firms in hard-hit communities responded by investing more in automation to reduce their reliance on workers. That project reached decision-makers in the highest levels of federal government, attracted national news attention, and inspired further academic work.

That said, what I’m most proud of is how that research was the result of important collaborations, support from UNC Kenan-Flagler to buy data, and advice from colleagues at the university and across the globe. It also led to new connections and reinforced my conviction that our research can change public opinion and inform business leaders and policymakers.  

What is a uniquely Carolina experience you’ve had?

The pandemic was especially challenging for our PhD program. At the time, I was serving as the finance coordinator, directly supervising PhD students — many of whom were international, which meant that lockdowns and related travel restrictions were exceedingly stressful. Most weren’t sure if they were going to be able to stay in the country, when they would see their families again, or if they would lose their housing, let alone how to keep making progress in a multi-year program where there is no time to take gaps.

We started doing “happy hour” video calls where we would just chat or play Pictionary — using economic concepts, of course. That group’s capacity for friendship and sharing was a truly Carolina experience. It makes me want to check in with everyone in that cohort!