Luke Raskopf, PoliSci major and Xinyi (Lucy) Lu, Stats/CompSci major, spent ten weeks investigating the effectiveness of policies to combat unemployment and wage stagnation faced by working and middle-class families in the State of North Carolina. They worked closely with Allan Freyer at the North Carolina Justice Center.
Project Results
The team used regression and survival analysis to study the effects of different types of incentives programs on several counties in North Carolina, and made a series of data-driven policy recommendations to the Justice Center.
Download the executive summary (PDF).
Video: See Lucy and Luke on their way to a client presentation!
Disciplines Involved
- Economics
- Statistics
Project Team
Undergraduates: Luke Raskopf and Xinyi (Lucy) Lu
Client: Allan Freyer, Director, Worker’s Rights Project, North Carolina Justice Center
Faculty Sponsor: Paul Bendich
Graduate student mentor: Matt Panhans, Economics
Hear from the Client, Allan Freyer:
“As the Director of the Workers’ Rights Project at the North Carolina Justice Center, I’ve been excited to partner with Duke’s Data+ initiative. The students provided a significant amount of highly sophisticated data analysis in support of an important project on the ways in which economic development professionals can fight wage stagnation at the state and local levels. I strongly recommend professional organizations to consider Data+ for statistical analyses they don’t have the capacity to do in house—the students are highly adaptable, learn quickly, and perform high quality work. I told my team I would happy to serve as a reference for any of them.”
