May 7, 2012
An American Medical Association study found that one of every five claims is inaccurately processed by health insurers.
Apr 23, 2012
Next week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, in partnership with the Office of the Comptroller
Dec 19, 2011
I’m hopeful the Occupy moment will evolve into a less grungy, more strategic political
Nov 29, 2011
North Carolina’s Eastern Region (NCER) hosted the state’s first Work Ready Communities orientation session on November 7, 2011.
Oct 21, 2011
On Tuesday, November 8, CFED Founder Bob Friedman will speak at “Big Ideas for Job Creation,”
Sep 19, 2011
While cleaning up my office, I ran across a lecture, authored by Professor Edward (Ned) Hill, that I embarrassingly never read
Sep 9, 2011
The latest projections by the US Congressional Budget Office indicate low rates of employment creation and high rates of joblessness through 2014.
Aug 31, 2011
The American economic picture remains very grim. The recovery from the Great Recession can only be called “tepid”
Jul 27, 2011
The world of economic development has changed dramatically in the past few decades. After being virtually synonymous with
Jun 27, 2011
Here at CFED, when we introduce our colleagues to one another and to members of the assets & opportunity field, we like to
Apr 25, 2011
Like most economic development professionals, my metric of success is more akin to a decent baseball batting average
Mar 4, 2011
At this juncture of a painfully slow recovery from a major recession, there remains a massive job gap in the U.S. The Upjohn Institute for Employment Research argues that if the country is to restore the employment to population ratio to the level it was in December, 2007, the American economy must create 320,000 net new jobs per month for five years.
Mar 1, 2011
‘Green’ development and ‘green’ jobs present exciting opportunities for innovation that will benefit lower-income people. Several ideas in CFED’s Innovation Portfolio explore the green economy. For example, check out Leonard McCollum’s and Chuck Shannon’s work with Green Business and Prisoner Re-entry and Ted Howard’s efforts with the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, OH.
Feb 17, 2011
The W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research has continued doing much appreciated work in publishing leading-edge scholarly, but useful research with three new books and the findings from a recent conference. Let’s start with the books.
Jan 18, 2011
North Carolina, like most American states, faces a tough funding future. The state has a large budget shortfall, which it is legally required to close. Hard choices are on the horizon -- significant cuts in services and programs and possibly tax and fee hikes. Fortunately, state leaders can and ought to take steps to make a difference.
Dec 20, 2010
Economic development policymakers and practitioners generally do not focus much on macroeconomic policy. This is understandable, given the obvious fact that such policy is the province of the Federal Reserve and the federal government.
Dec 2, 2010
Despite the efficacy of the Obama Administration's package in preventing a full-scale Great Depression Number Two and cutting the unemployment rate by a significant factor, it is widely regarded as a political and policy failure. In fact, it can be even regarded as toxic to be too associated with it.
This chain of events did not surprise me, but the scale of the reaction was much larger than I expected. I thought that this might be a minority reaction, and not a response of a significant portion of the electorate.
Nov 24, 2010
Given today’s high unemployment rate and slow economic recovery, many American ex-workers would appreciate landing any job. But when they return to the workplace, issues of wages and working conditions will return. Two complimentary books that I recently ran across focus on these issues admirably. The first is authored by economist Francis Green and is a clearly written scholarly treatise that probes the major issues in “Demanding Work: The Paradox of Job Quality in the Affluent Economy.” (2006) The second work, “Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America’s Best Workers are Unhappier than Ever” (2008) is a fascinating and moving exercise in the journalistic art. It tells a good story.
Nov 9, 2010
There will always be a gap between what really is the case and what we think is true.
Oct 29, 2010
There is nothing like a financial crisis to spur the publishing world to generate new books, both good and bad, on the subject. Some tomes stick close to the causes and consequences, while others explore a variety of related topics. Indeed, a number of writers use today’s Great Recession as an opportunity to raise fundamental concerns about the theory, policy, methods, validity, and truth of mainstream neo-classical economics.
Oct 19, 2010
Most everybody knows that the cost of college tuition is increasing, while the payoffs for post-secondary credentials and degrees are still high. Advocacy efforts to create and expand children’s savings accounts, grants and loans of all types, tax credits, scholarships, and stipends abound. Many of these show definite promise, as a method of funding one’s children’s initial post-secondary education, both equitably and efficiently. There is also a need for reconsidering how best to target the aid to help those that truly need the assistance, as well as decreasing the complexity of the applications process and forms for the average American.
Sep 13, 2010
These are tough times for the jobless. The recovery is weak and is not generating enough jobs so far. What are we to do to address our citizens' employment worries and realities?
Jun 21, 2010
There is no "paint-by-the-numbers" way to create jobs. One cannot look up the answer by consulting the index of some cookbook and following a simple recipe.
Jun 9, 2010
How do we plan for the next economic downturn? It may seem a trifle premature to be tackling this task. After all, the North Carolina economy is just beginning to start its recovery from the Great Recession. And if the current European slump remains under control, we should be able to count on a sustained, if slow and uneven, economic upturn for some time.
Apr 6, 2010
There's a familiar story that many of us have come to passively accept in recent years about rural North Carolina. You know how this goes: It holds that time has passed these areas by; that they are beyond repair and without hope; and that anyone working on intentional solutions to improve these communities is a naïve dreamer.
Dec 2, 2009
Now, there is the fundamental question. Do they work?
What Are The Costs And Benefits Of Using Incentives To Attract Business?
Benefits
Particularly from the perspective of a state or local economy, there are a number of benefits from using tax and non-tax incentives to attract businesses.
Oct 15, 2009
A consulting buddy of mine used to say that "there are three modes of existence in life and in economic development - you can flourish, cope or die."
Oct 13, 2009
A consulting buddy of mine used to say that "there are three modes of existence in life and in economic development - you can flourish, cope or die."
Oct 13, 2009
A consulting buddy of mine used to say that "there are three modes of existence in life and in economic development - you can flourish, cope or die."
Jul 12, 2009
In my previous article, “In Appreciation of William Vickrey,” I told the story of Vickrey’s dedication to the goal of widened opportunities and presented a few of the elements of his policy agenda for providing livable wage jobs for all Americans. However, I did not present many specifics on how this would work on the ground. For this entry, I would like to provide detail about a more current full employment proposal by Vickrey “disciple,” economist L. Randall Wray.
Sep 9, 2008
Don't get your hopes up - this is not the definitive article. It's actually a series of book reviews that have been cobbled together. In sifting through these works, I have been selective, if not arbitrary in what I will discuss. And I must warn you that not all these works are hot-off-the-press. They were lying around and I just got a hankering to read them in whole or part during the past month.
May 21, 2008
The first thing any personal finance expert will tell you is that before you make any decisions on how you budget your money, you first figure out how much you are spending and where it is going. Although many of us don’t heed that advice for our own purposes, we might expect the people minding our government budgets to have a good handle on that information.
Apr 17, 2008
North Carolina is a perplexing state. When one looks at its key economic, technological and workforce indicators, you would expect them to be stronger. While the state enjoys lots of good numbers regarding higher education, employment generation, innovation assets, and other similar measures, it features very troubling indicators when it comes to inequality (between households and different regions) and a workforce that is losing ground with respect to pay and required skills.
Dec 19, 2007
Fresh thinking is required about the way economic development is heading in the United States. We have to move the debate about business climate away from simplistic notions of tax competitiveness or “getting the government off our backs” to focus on the real disincentives to economic competitiveness and opportunity. We explore six critical policy “levers” for creating a better business climate: education, physical infrastructure, regulation, taxation, development incentives and modernization.
Nov 19, 2007
Today, we are examining the nature and popularity of business incentives and attraction strategies.
Nov 16, 2007
The pressures associated with the bidding wars and the “cut-taxes-and-deregulate” lobby lead to policy “on the fly.” Decisions are made in an un-strategic fashion and long-term consequences are rarely considered. Recruitment efforts focus on doing the deal and tax adjustments are made on the basis of political calculus. It is time to set out some basic principles that should inform economic development policies and programs.
Nov 15, 2007
Major Questions about Economic Development, Business Recruitment and Incentives: Some Questions Come with Answers, Some Don’t
Nov 2, 2007
Conventional wisdom says that tax breaks and other incentives are the drivers in state and local development and that their availability and size are the key determinates of business location decisions. Yet, is this true? Most reliable studies of these issues have found that qualified workers, proximity to customers, good public services, a modern infrastructure, and local amenities are more important to most business decision makers – whether they be a new entrepreneur, an existing firm, or a branch plant seeking a more profitable location.
Oct 15, 2007
Another way to get a sense of the costs and benefits of other economic development and employment programs relative to the use of business incentives is to follow a hypothetical example created by Professors Alan Peters and Peter Fisher at the University of Iowa. They reason as follows:
Oct 12, 2007
Helping the poor, dislocated workers, new immigrants, single parent families, minority youth and others to advance to greater self-sufficiency and ultimately to middle class socioeconomic status is affected by scores of polices. On the federal side, monetary and fiscal policies, trade agreements, and the use of affirmative action strategies are just a few examples.
Oct 11, 2007
There are many ways to grow an economy beyond using subsidies to recruit footloose facilities.
Aug 31, 2007
In a recent court decision in the case of Summers v. State Street, distinguished Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner raised some eyebrows and set fire to the employee ownership community and their advocates by comments he made in reference to the effectiveness and viability of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). In his decision, Posner states:
Aug 7, 2007
A recent issue of the New Yorker (July 9 and 16, 2007) featured an excellent review of The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Politics, a new book by a George Mason University economist Bryan Caplan. Penned by the always thoughtful and literate Louis Menand, the review evaluates Caplan’s argument that “increasing voting participation is a bad thing.” Why?
Aug 3, 2007
Many economic development projects and programs actually cause harm to the environment. This is no surprise to anyone who pays attention to growth’s effects on the local landscape or knows anything at all about the threats climate change may pose to the Earth and its denizens.
Aug 3, 2007
I do not want to imply that all is rosy in my recent articles regarding regulation. Since the Reagan Presidency, the Law and Economics movement and the Public Choice school have dominated the intellectual argument regarding pollution prevention and control, worker safety, and consumer rights and, in tandem with increasing numbers of conservative judges have pushed regulatory law and practice in unprogressive, laissez faire directions.
Aug 3, 2007
The Eastern Shore is home to about 45,000 people. Many are poor. John Hall and his staff had helped to create the Northampton Housing Trust, which eventually morphed into a CDC. And in December 1993, the Jedi and other staff formed a for-profit company to create jobs on the Shore called the Virginia Eastern Shore Corporation (VESC).
Jul 31, 2007
Daniel J. Fiorino’s The New Environmental Regulation is an important book for environmentalists and economic developers. Following in the footsteps of James Boyd (Resources for the Future), Peter Barnes (author of Skytrust), Malcolm Sparrow (Kennedy School), Archon Fung (Kennedy School) and Daniel Esty (author of Green to Gold), Fiorino seeks to demonstrate that the United States has accomplished all the environmental protection that it can with its traditional approaches to regulation.
Jul 17, 2007
What can be done by firms and their business associations to create better employment opportunities or to transform lousy jobs?
In this series of articles about the causes, consequences and cures of the loss of jobs that pay well and demand low- or moderate skills, we have focused only on what the government could do (along with its nonprofit and for-profit partners). In other words, we have sought public policy solutions.
Jul 3, 2007
A deeply moral and religious man, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), William Vickrey was also described as an “economist’s economist.” Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics , Vickrey made major contributions in the areas of urban economics, transportation planning and costing, taxation, auctions, marginal cost pricing, social choice, game theory and macroeconomics. He was also a committed proponent of full employment. Unfortunately, dying but a few days after winning his Nobel, Vickrey missed his chance to use his international stature to further his goal of “chock-full employment”.
Jun 29, 2007
A “Smart Subsidies Audit” is a tool that enables state (or local) policymakers to hold their business incentive programs to a higher level of accountability, in regards to their transparency, fiscal integrity, cost-effectiveness and impact.
Jun 19, 2007
An earlier article—Good Jobs, Part 1: What Are They and Why Are They Important?—sketched the problem of not having a large enough supply of good jobs in the American economy. This piece identifies a wide range of approaches to improve opportunities. Some, if done right, may work all the time. Others may work some of the time, but turned too tightly, could send the economy into a nosedive.
Jun 8, 2007
Regarding job creation, the United States economy is the king. During the last few decades, it has overwhelmed our Western European competitors in sheer numbers. But it has not done as well in terms of job quality. A much higher percentage of new (and old) jobs pay less and provide fewer benefits and little security. The US is also losing many of the jobs that combined modest skills and good pay in manufacturing.
Apr 23, 2007
CFED Releases the 2006 North Carolina Action Kit on transforming economic development policy and practice in the states
Author Bill Schweke has just finished a series of economic development reform essays for policymakers and advocates in North Carolina, which are relevant to other states as well.
Apr 23, 2007
Elected officials and policymakers are under intense pressure to do almost anything that might create wealth and jobs. Their operating environment is characterized by corporate threats to relocate (or not come at all) unless they receive public subsidies, along with increased job, income, and production insecurity from globalization, outsourcing, and lower-cost imports. In this context, economic development is vitally important for America's state and local elected and appointed officials. Never has so much political and public financial capital been expended on its behalf. Despite tight state budgetary constraints, it rarely suffers cuts, and citizens now expect state policymakers to take some responsibility for the workings of their economy.
Apr 23, 2007
Business incentive costs continue to rise. States competing to land a prospect do not know what each is bidding, while the footloose enterprise is in the best position for egging on the multiple states to bid more than necessary to close the deal. When this occurs, it's called the "winner's curse", because the winner of the particular "auction" pays more than any of the other bidders believe it is worth, possibly more than the company's target, and may be more than the government can afford.
Apr 23, 2007
Every few years, a cross discipline group of MIT scholars put on their walking shoes, go into the field, and see “what companies around the world are doing to make it in this global economy.” The Berger study is the latest – a five-year identification and analysis of 500 international companies. The effort aims to “discover which practices are succeeding,” “which are failing,” and “why.” Spurred by the “rising fear in America that no job is safe,” the researchers wished to explore whether these anxieties are justified.
Apr 17, 2007
This working paper was developed for the Rural Dislocated Worker Summit (held on September 2, 2004) to provide an update of previous literature reviews addressing the issue of dislocated workers.
Apr 17, 2007
Increasingly, regions are emerging as the principal unit of economic competition and strategy in America. The real economy is not bounded by conventional government jurisdictions; production, consumption, communication and commerce flow across city, county and state lines. Healthy sub state regional economies trade with other economies beyond their boundaries, and city and county governance structures do not line up easily with regional concerns or the geography of sub state economies. State policymakers have the fiscal resources and often the right perspective on what's needed to make a difference, but state capitols are often too far from the action at the grassroots level to have the local economic intelligence needed to craft the best policy solutions. Regional and local development practitioners and institutions have an important role to play in framing the economic futures of their regions and ensuring that economic benefits are truly inclusive.
Apr 17, 2007
Typically, business incentive reformers win the intellectual arguments about the downsides of business incentives, but state and local policymakers refuse to stop providing incentives. The following imagined dialogue between a wonk reformer and a business recruiting buffalo hunter captures the back-and-forth of such a conversation. But there is one big difference: this conversation may offer a way out of the present impasse.
Apr 17, 2007
That North Carolina has been hit hard during the recent recession is news to no one. The state has seen a record number of jobs lost, plants closed, and mass layoffs as its traditional manufacturing base restructures and moves abroad. More than a quarter of the state's manufacturing base disappeared (about 219,800 jobs) between 1990 to late 2003.
Apr 17, 2007
NELP's economic dislocation initiative is focused on job losses flowing from the restructuring of the Midwest's auto industry. This page includes documents from experts regarding options for responding more effectively to economic dislocation.
Apr 17, 2007
A New Direction
North Carolina could explore other labor-intensive subsidy models, especially since job creation is a prime imperative in these counties. Indeed, one of the paradoxes of the field of business incentives is that most development subsidies are capital-based, yet they are supposed to create jobs. Such subsidies can create jobs, but they are less efficient than labor-targeted ones. Capital subsidies only generate employment as a byproduct of increased production; that is, employment increases are coincidental. However, this does not mean that capital subsidies are inherently good: It just means labor-targeted subsidies offer more direct and potentially cost-effective ways of creating jobs.
Apr 12, 2007
All Americans recognize that China is a rising economic power. According to the Institute for International Economics, China became the third largest trading nation in the world in 2004. This rapid ascent is not only a function of its sheer size and high growth rates, but also its openness to trade and foreign investment.
Mar 21, 2007
As the price of attracting footloose corporations like Google, Dell and others climbs to new heights and their demands grow more bizarre (e.g. vows of secrecy, country club memberships for relocating executives, etc.), many policymakers and citizens looking to boost their states and communities feel trapped. These leaders perceive that, whatever they may think personally about corporate incentives, they and their communities must “play the game” in order to have dynamic and hospitable economies. In short, they feel trapped on a train that they cannot get off, whether they like it or not.
Feb 8, 2007
Among the most interesting things to come out of a recent article entitled “The Promise of Progressive Federalism” by Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers are data regarding the comparative economic performances of “red states” and “blue states” over the past 35 years. These data expose the weaknesses in the anti-government version of business climate that argues that the best environment for private enterprise is one characterized by low wages, lax regulation, no unions, and low taxes.
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