About NCGE

About NCGE

The North Carolina in the Global Economy (NCGE) project provides information on the past and present trends in key traditional and rising industries in North Carolina using the value chain framework. The NCGE website provides detailed information about the structure and trends of seven important North Carolina industries: textiles and apparel, furniture, tobacco, information technology, biotechnology, banks and finance and hog farming. Information for each industry falls under the following sections: Overview, Tables, Charts Maps, Value Chains, Corporations, Workers & Jobs, Production & Trade, Policy and Resources. These industries play prominent roles in North Carolina's economy, and the project seeks to shed light on how global economic forces affect local development and employment.

NCGE was maintained by the Global Value Chains Center (GVCC), previously called the Center for Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness until 2019. It is now managed by Stacey Frederick.

Student Involvement

A key feature of the NCGE project was student involvement. The original version of NCGE was used as a research site for an undergraduate course at Duke University taught by Professor Gary Gereffi during the Fall 2004 semester. Students in the class conducted original research based on primary and secondary sources available on North Carolina and the site began with the results of their research efforts.

Since the initial launch of the website, undergraduates enrolled in Gereffi's classes have continued to engage in similar research on North Carolina's economy and have participated in the NCGE project through independent research projects and coursework. This provides students with the opportunity to collaborate outside the classroom and engage in real-world research being used by state, national and international policymakers and businesses. Several testimonials are available from students on the value of working on NCGE to their educational and career goals.

For the current version of the website (launched April 2014), this tradition continued with support from a Duke University initiative called Bass Connections. Goals of the Bass Connections initiative are closely aligned with those of NCGE - providing students with exposure to cross-disciplinary research and opportunities to see the intersection between academic learning and the broader world. During the 2013-2014 academic year seven students participated in the Bass Connections course and engaged in research related to the NCGE industries as part of the “NC in the Global Economy: The Workforce Development Challenge” project team.

Project Team

Research for the NCGE website was by teams of undergraduate and graduate students at Duke University and GVCC researchers.

2013 – 2014 NCGE/Bass Connections Team
The following are the team members that were involved in updating the current version of the website.
CGGC Team

Gary Gereffi – CGGC Director; Bass Connections Professor
Stacey Frederick – Project Coordinator; Data Visualization; Bass Connections Co-Instructor
Lukas Brun – Bass Connections Co-Instructor
Andy Hull – Industry research
Jack Daly – Industry research
Dayne Hamrick – Industry research
Andrew Guinn – Industry research
Sissi Schulmeister-Antona – Website content updates

Bass Connections Students

Dominique Beaudry (Fall 2013)
John Bowman*
Sean Clark*
Connor Gordon (Spring 2014)
Leah Nash (Spring 2014)
Ankit Prasad*
Ali Schwartz*
*: participated in both Fall 2013 & Spring 2014 semesters

Previous Project Teams

For previous versions of the website (2004, 2006 and 2007), data was compiled by Duke undergraduate students enrolled in Gereffi's course on "Organizations and Global Competitiveness” with the assistance of graduate students as well as CGGC researchers in 2007. Previous NCGE team members are listed in Table 1 below.

Table 1: North Carolina in the Global Economy Project Teams (2004 - 2007)
Industry Fall '04 Fall '06 Spring '07 Fall '07
Project Coordinators

Ryan Denniston
Deepa George
Monica Biradavolu
Kelvin Inn

Stacey Frederick
Ryan Denniston
Ryan Ong
Shawn Miller

Banks & Finance Jason Ellis
Christian Heim
Joshua Hopkins
Jordan Whitley
Ana Barton
Emily Dunn
Lucy Zang
Tara Holahan
Mike Videira
Philip Wightman

Michelle Christian
Jennifer Kim
Andrew Kindman
Lauren May
Ben Sacchetti
Craig Stephenson
Aileen Zhang

Biotechnology Mari Armstrong-Hough
Ying Chiat Ho
Vijay Singh
Swee San Tan
Jenny Bo
Elle Pishny
Alex Shum
Catherine Fuentes
Nick Lamson
Carolyn Zwiener
Furniture Sterling Edwards
Danielle Goldstein
Tiffany Kung
Jasmina Stanojevich
Jordan Duran
Cara Lopresti
Kelly McCain
Craig Stephenson
V.J. Singh
Jo Terlato
Andrew Yaffe
Hog Farming Arup Banerjee
Alex Bates
Jack Cator
Amit Mehta
Stephen Cox
Nick Stefanow
Brandon Tapps
James Kelly
Kelly McCann
Chris Plasencia
Information Technology Daniel (Ty) Fridrich
Cassie Lancellotti-Young
Yoni Riemer
Pavel Zhelyazkov
Angela Aldrich
Arup Banerjee
Josh Hopkins
Matthew Campbell
Chris DeStasio
Tina Liang
Textiles and Apparel Chris Burney
Sara Dal Porto
Justin Trowbridge
Wynter Whitley
Luyuan Fan
Lauren May
Chris Moore
Ben Sacchetti
Tealle Hunkus
Parker King
Spencer Wadsworth
Tobacco/Cigarettes Dan Lerman
Michelle Nathan
Amy Pimental
Ben Sacchetti
Mandi Fuller
Trish Lenza
Garrett Mason
Cheng Chen
Allen Eakin
Jonathan Port
Web Development

Gary Thompson
Joy Stutts

Funding

Financial assistance to update the NCGE website has been provided through multiple organizations throughout Duke University over the last ten years. Support for the current (April 2014) version of the NCGE website was provided through the Duke University Bass Connections initiative via the “NC in the Global Economy: The Workforce Development Challenge” project.

Updates featured in the 2007 version were made possible by a visualization grant from Duke's Center for Instructional Technology under the title, "Visualizing Economic Development: Value Chains and Mapping of U.S. and Global Employment and Trade Data."

Earlier funds and infrastructure support were provided by the following units at Duke University: Markets & Management Studies Program, Sociology Department, Robert Thompson, Dean of Trinity College and John F. Burness, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Relations.

Support NCGE: Research Funding & Gift Giving

The NCGE project has historically been maintained as an internal project supported by Duke University and the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness (CGGC), however the NCGE provides a range of benefits that go beyond the Duke community. NCGE is a valuable resource for both its users and for the students that engage in the research that takes learning in the classroom to real-world applications while also educating them on the industrial make-up of the state they live in.

We would like to continue to update and expand the website with support from external partners.
If you are interested in supporting research to add or expand the NC in the Global Economy website or would like to replicate the concept for industries in your region, state or country, please contact Stacey Frederick