The Anchor Institutions Create Economic Resilience (AICER) initiative seeks to stimulate distressed economies through anchor institution-community partnerships.
We update an August 2023 piece in which we explain why manufacturing remains essential for economic growth and how manufacturing in the US today incorporates both regional shifts and “stickiness” in traditional strongholds.
As a second wave of COVID-19 cases makes its way around the world, the danger to the U.S. economy is clear. In this Kenan Insight, we examine the potentially damaging effects of the ongoing pandemic on an already battered workforce, and make the case for why Congress must act quickly to ensure economic stability.
The Biden administration has proposed several multi-trillion dollar initiatives to invest more federal dollars in infrastructure, education, healthcare and more. However, these big ticket items come at a significant cost, which the president hopes to cover through tax reforms. Proposed changes could affect individual income taxes for high earners, corporate taxes, international taxes and capital gains – and needless to say, the proposed reforms have drawn both strong critics and supporters. As dizzying negotiations and politicking continue in Washington, two of our experts unpack the proposed tax changes and their potential impacts on businesses and households in this week’s Kenan Insight.
The latest report from the Department of Labor showed continued robust job growth. Employers added 431,000 jobs in March. The news of sustained job gains speaks to the strength of the U.S. economy. Moreover, the labor force participation rate inched up slightly to 62.4% in March, from 62.3% in February, indicating more Americans are reentering the workforce. We still have a long way to go to resolve the imbalance between job openings and unemployed people, however, and this means that current issues of worker burnout will also linger.
To find signs of productivity, we must first know where to look. Chief Economist Gerald Cohen describes how an area’s industry mix is key to its productivity and how adjusting that mix can drive more local growth using data from our American Growth Project.
As the digital revolution rages on, every business leader must become technology literate. This guide provides executives with an introduction to the technologies that are transforming our world.
The paper explores how the workload of emergency room physicians affects which non-urgent patients they choose to prioritize out of a full waiting room, and what the consequences of those decisions might be for both the doctor and patient.
The effectiveness of cancer screening and adherence to cancer screening guidelines can be inhibited by long wait times for screening appointments. We develop a queueing network model of screening for a disease within a population of patients with imperfect adherence to screening guidelines to characterize the relationship between the screening request frequency rate and the wait time for screens. We first use our model to derive the capacity needed by a given system or the population size a given system can serve to guarantee a certain service level.
Join part two of our two-part discussion on data privacy as we examine the integration and privacy concerns presented by contact tracing. The conversation will explore how current data protections laws address the issue, and will cover potential regulatory changes we might see in response to the current crisis.
After spending the summer completing internships in the public sector and conducting research on COVID-19’s impact in local communities, Kenan Scholars shared their experiences with fellow students, UNC faculty/staff and business professionals at the Kenan Scholars Public Sector Showcase on Sept. 25, 2020.
Private equity investment in healthcare has grown over the last decade – but its role can be a hot topic. Some say PE funds innovation and streamlines costs, while others say it affects the quality of healthcare. In this week’s insight, RedSail Technologies Chief Strategy Officer Frances Nahas and Zetema Project Founder and Chair Mark Zitter to weigh in on the debate.
While economists have long theorized that wealthier individuals may purchase less life and property insurance because they can rely on their savings if something unexpected happens, a new study of more than 63,000 people shows that, in practice, quite the opposite is true. This week’s Kenan Insight offers a chance for our experts to explore the findings of their new study, which suggest disparities in insurance coverage could help explain and exacerbate existing financial inequalities.
A panel from this year's Alternative Investments Conference discusses how venture capital is playing catch-up on ESG investing, "knowing what levers you can pull," and the opportunity for huge growth in this week's Kenan Insight.
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.
The Kenan Institute's projected 2024 GDP growth rates for 150 microeconomies across the United States anticipate a slowdown, with almost all our 150 Extended Metropolitan Areas experiencing a deceleration.
In recent months, mechanisms that have allowed for high-skilled foreign nationals to study and work in the U.S. have been put on the policy chopping block. In this Kenan Insight, we discuss why high-skilled foreign workers are critical to America's economic health, and why policies must continue to support their entry into the U.S.
The NCFOODSAFE project bridges existing gaps in current North Carolina food safety systems by developing a new informatics tool, the North Carolina Foodborne Events Data Integration and Analysis (NCFEDA) tool, that provides situational awareness and intelligence about an intrinsically complex and dynamic process—the detection of and response to a foodborne disease outbreak. The project is informed by an understanding of the information sharing and communication structures among government agencies and other personnel responsible for regulating and overseeing the state’s food safety system.
The investigations following the attacks of September 11, 2001, showed that our ability to verify a person’s identity is crucial to our national security. As pointed out by The 9/11 Commission Report (National Commission on Terrorists Attacks Upon the United States, 2004), travel documents are as important as weapons for terrorists. To carry out an attack on American soil, foreign terrorists must cross our borders—which requires passing an identification screening. A valid passport also allows a terrorist to obtain other valid documents (e.g., driver’s license, credit cards, health insurance card) that are important to performing normal life activities while maintaining a low profile and avoiding detection. Four projects, currently in different stages of implementation, use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) or Machine-Readable Zones (MRZ) technologies for verification and validation of identity in the United States. These programs are (1) e-Passport, (2) PASS Card, (3) Real ID, and (4) Enhanced Driver’s License. The use of RFID enables data to be stored electronically in chips embedded in identification documents and shared quickly in digital format by law enforcement personnel. Documents with RFID chips and a secure networking environment to exchange data are deemed more secure and less prone to counterfeiting than conventional, non-electronic documents. However, there is still debate about how to best balance the security benefits from RFID-enabled identification documents with concerns about privacy.