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2.26.08
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Courses
Economic development policy, workforce development, planning for the
knowledge economy and
planning for North American economic integration
• PLAN 053
(006E) First Year Seminar - The Changing
American Job
• PLAN
770 (261) Economic
Development Policy
• PLAN
779 (310) Planning for Jobs: Labor Market
Transformations and Employment Policy
in the 21st Century
(Red course numbers relate to UNC’s
former course numbering system)
Research
Dr. Lowe's research focuses primarily on local economic development
and adjustment in the North American
context. She is especially interested in the local support systems
that enable firms to engage in innovative
activities, particularly during periods of economic volatility. A
central concern of her work is the accountability
of business assistance and workforce development programs and supports
to the larger host community.
Her research not only raises questions about the impact of local support
systems on firm performance and
survivability, but the degree to which supporting actors—both
public and private—can shape the upgrading
and upskilling path of local firms in ways that reflect and reinforce
higher-order developmental goals and
community values.
She has
examined these processes through in-depth case studies of both traditional
manufacturing and
knowledge-based industries. For a recent project on life sciences,
she examined the early origins of the
U.S. biotechnology industry and the influence that municipal level
biosafety ordinances played in the
intensity of regional entrepreneurship. She has also studied
North Carolina’s life science workforce
development initiative and specifically the state’s novel efforts
to influence local hiring practices so as to
create jobs in biopharmaceuticals for displaced textile, tobacco-processing
and microelectronics workers.
This study examines the mediating role of the state’s community
college system and increasing use of
a sectoral-based strategy for encouraging greater skills transference
between the state’s traditional and
emerging industrial base.
Building on the theme of skills transference, she is currently conducting
research on North Carolina’s urban
construction industry in order to examine processes of skill recognition
and formation among recent Mexican
immigrants. This project focuses on the experiences of less
educated immigrants and specifically, the
processes that enable them to reveal and defend their existing, though
less visible, skill sets and talents.
She is also interested in the role that regional labor market institutions
play in initially discouraging employers
from recognizing or taking full advantage of these skills and the
policy implications of this dynamic. She
has worked as a consultant for the International Labour Organization,
Inter-American Development Bank,
Bank of the Northeast Brazil and Ontario Ministry of Economic Development
and Trade. She received her
Ph.D. in Economic Development from MIT in 2003.
Public
Service and Professional Activities
• UNC
Supply Chain Working Group Member
• UNC Economic
Development Working Group Member
• Jobs and Economic Development
Action Team Member, Durham C.A.N.
• Instructor, Spring 2007, DCRP Economic Development Workshop
Course: Developing an action strategy for
Durham CAN to help make business recruitment incentives for
Durham County more locally accountable.
• Contributor to SouthNow
(2006), UNC Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life
Selected
Publications:
•
Lowe, Nichola. Forthcoming. Job Creation and the Knowledge
Economy: Lessons from North Carolina's
Life Science Manufacturing Initiative. Economic Development
Quarterly.
• Lowe,
Nichola. Forthcoming. Challenging Tradition: Un-Locking
New Paths to Regional Industrial Upgrading.
Environment and Planning A.
• Lowe, Nichola and Meric Gertler. Forthcoming. Building
on Diversity: Institutional Foundations of Hybrid
Strategies in Toronto’s Life Sciences. Regional
Studies.
• Donegan, Mary and Nichola Lowe. Forthcoming. Inequality
in the Creative City: Is There Still a Place for
“Old-Fashioned” Institutions? Economic
Development Quarterly.
• Lowe,
Nichola. 2007. Patterns of Productivity Enhancement in
Paraguay’s Small and Medium
Enterprises. In D. Borda (ed) Economia y Empleo en el Paraguay.
Asunción: CADEP.
• Lowe, Nichola. 2006. Acquiring the Skills
to Better Manage Local Economic Development: The case of Jalisco,
Mexico. In C. S. Galbraith and C. H. Stiles (eds) Developmental
Entrepreneurship: Adversity, Risk, and
Isolation. London: Elsevier Sciences
• Lowe,
Nichola and Meric Gertler. 2005. Diversity and the Evolution
of a Life Science Innovation System: The
Toronto Region in Comparative Perspective. In D.A.
Wolfe and M. Lucas (eds) Global Networks and Local
Linkages: The Paradox of Clusters in an Open Economy.
Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s
University Press.
•
Lowe,
N. and M. Kenney. 1999. Foreign Investment and the Global
Geography of Production: Why the Mexican
Consumer Electronics Industry Failed. World Development
27: 1427-1443.