Capabilities

Design    Data Collection    Data Analysis    Reporting and Dissemination

The Center for Community Capital delivers real-world research of relevance to policy makers, market practitioners and academic audiences as they seek to foster sustainable economic opportunity for more households and communities.

The center has particular expertise and capacity in managing large and complex data sets involving longitudinal, cross-sectional and multi-level variables. Our multi-year panel study of several thousand low- and moderate-income homeowners incorporates extensive annual interviews by phone as well as in-home components; a comparison sample of lower-income renters; innovative approaches to tracing and incentives; attrition-bias weighting; supplemental data derived from external sources; and a public use component currently under development.

The center partners with a variety of high-quality organizations with complementary data-collection skill sets and staff, including RTI International and the UNC Center for Urban and Regional Studies, to deliver full-spectrum research: design, data collection, data analysis, and reporting and dissemination.

Design

The center conducts a variety of research project types and can structure a research framework appropriate to the issue at hand. Our project design tools include:

• Refining the research agenda.
• Reviewing literature and theory.
• Identifying available sources of data.
• Analyzing the state of relevant policy and practices.
• Designing data collecting, sampling and analysis plan.
• Developing data collection instruments.

Data Collection

The center has experience with many methods of data collection in our field of expertise and with a range of participant types: individuals, households, enterprises and financial institutions.

Methods. Our data collection methods include:

• Large-scale, longitudinal panel data collection, specializing in: questionnaire design, in-person interviewing and phone surveying; creation of sampling frames; dataset planning, development and documentation; weighting for attrition and non-response bias.
• Smaller-scale survey data collection projects: in person; by mail, telephone, Internet or mixed methods.
• Qualitative data collection, such as case studies, focus groups, key informant and stakeholder interviews, and site visits
• Integrating data from secondary datasets, such as U.S. Census, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA), Survey of Consumer Finance, National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), General Social Survey, Integrated Public Use Microdata Set (IPUMS), American Community Survey, American Housing Survey.

Confidentiality. The center has had extensive experience collecting financial information that requires attention to the sensitivities and issues of confidentiality and privacy. In addition to our own experiences and track record in this type of research, our research activities also are monitored by the University of North Carolina's Institutional Review Board of the Office of Human Research Ethics (IRB) , which is responsible for ethical and regulatory oversight of all university research involving human subjects.

Types. The center projects involve data on:

• Individuals, households and establishments related to their economic conditions.
• Demographics and socio-economic status.
• Geographic and neighborhood information.
• Attitudes and opinions about financial issues.

Data Analysis

Center researchers bring a diverse set of skills in data analysis and inferential statistical analysis, particularly in multivariate analyses of categorical and longitudinal panel data. This includes:

• Selection models
• Competing risk models
• Survival analysis
• Propensity score matching
• Multilevel modeling
• Multiple imputation
• Structural equation model

Reporting and Dissemination

The center produces high-quality reports on a variety of formats that present study methods and results and discuss important policy implications. Center staff members are frequent presenters at hearings and conferences regarding policy issues related to financial capital and its impact on families and households.

Among its methods of reporting and dissemination are:

• Papers for publication in peer-reviewed academic and policy journals.
• Research reports and policy briefs for broad policy maker, industry and practitioner audiences.
• Presentations to legislative, regulatory, policy maker, industry and practitioner audiences.
• Conferences convened by the center and with partners to focus on special issues of financial capital and its impact.