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Jan 29, 2026
Housing Affordability in North Carolina
The Kenan Institute has developed a housing affordability index for North Carolina counties. The index and accompanying interactive map allow users to compare current county-level affordability metrics and see how these measures have changed over time.
Nov 17, 2025
Understanding the Importance of County-Level GDP
Forecasting gross domestic product is a challenging practice, but because GDP can reveal so much about the growth of a local economy, forecasts are an important guide in making policy and business decisions.
Recent Kenan Institute research based on interviews across the state highlights the successes and remaining barriers that North Carolina community colleges face in recruiting and retaining students as the labor market continues to evolve.
North Carolina’s growing skills gap reflects a national challenge, but the state’s robust job market is creating high-paying opportunities for skilled workers. We talked to four experts about how to successfully scale the state’s apprenticeship and training efforts.
Public education and small business anchor institutions recover slowly after disasters, as observed in Western North Carolina’s continuing recovery from Hurricane Helene. One organization offers a lesson on the benefits of getting funding to these sectors faster.
We estimate that industries producing in-demand minerals could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tax revenue for North Carolina and its communities by the end of the decade.
North Carolina adopted its County Tiers System to direct economic support toward struggling counties. An examination shows the nearly 40-year-old system is increasingly misaligned with both economic reality and stakeholder needs.
New business formation fuels local growth in North Carolina and offers real-time data to guide policy and forecasting, according to new research from the Kenan Institute, the North Carolina Collaboratory, and the Secretary of State.
Learn about the legacy and the future of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, part of UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as it marks its 40th anniversary.
The Research Triangle and the Piedmont Triad epitomize North Carolina’s economic evolution. The Triangle transitioned from legacy industries to high-tech manufacturing and experienced explosive economic growth; the Triad may be poised to join it.
The destruction that Hurricane Helene brought to Western North Carolina in September, followed by this month's wildfires in Southern California, illustrates the financial risk that increasingly unpredictable weather can pose to homeowners and the insurance system.
Why Has Housing Become So Unaffordable?
In the past few years, buying a home has become much more expensive for the typical North Carolina household. We look at a few of the reasons why costs are rising so sharply for new buyers.