Digital Commons Network^™

Making Sense Of Incentives: Taming Business Incentives To Promote Prosperity, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

In evaluating incentives, everything depends on the details: how much in incentives it takes to truly cause a firm to locate or expand, the multiplier effects, the effects of jobs on employment rates, how jobs affect tax revenue versus public spending needs. Do benefits of incentives exceed costs? This depends on the details. This book is about those details. What magnitudes of incentive effects are plausible? How do benefits and costs vary with incentive designs? What advice can be given to evaluators? What is an ideal incentive policy? Answering these questions about incentives depends on a model of incentive effects, …

What Works To Help Manufacturing-Intensive Local Economies?, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Two Paths To The High Road: The Dynamics Of Coalition Building In Seattle And Buffalo, Ian Greer, Barbara Byrd, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] Labor-community coalitions are not a new concept. Unions approach such coalitions now, as in the past, as one way to enhance their bargaining power with an employer. Such coalitions are temporary and often issue-based. In recent years, however, some local labor movements have begun to look at coalitions in a broader way – as a means of improving their public image and building power in the political arena. This broad-based approach requires the development of coalitions for the longer run, not just for temporary expediency. This paper develops the notion of a high road social infrastructure as a way …

Changing Labor Market Conditions And Economic Development In Hong Kong, The Republic Of Korea, Singapore, And Taiwan, China, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

In the newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan (China), the entire working population has benefited from labor market institutions. The East Asian NIEs attained and maintained generally full employment, improved their job mixes, raised real earnings, and lowered their rates of poverty. This article reaches two principal conclusions. First, labor market conditions continued to improve in all four economies in the 1980s at rates remarkably similar to their rates of aggregate economic growth. Second, labor market repression was not a major factor in the growth experiences of these economies in the 1980s. …

Small Cities Blues: Looking For Growth Factors In Small And Medium-Sized Cities, George A. Erickcek, Hannah J. Mckinney

George A. Erickcek

The purpose of this exploratory study is to attempt to identify particular public policies which have the potential to increase the economic viability of smaller metropolitan areas and cities. We identify characteristics associated with smaller metro areas that performed better-than-expected (winners) and worse-than-expected (losers) during the 1990s, given their resources, industrial mix, and location as of 1990. Once these characteristics have been identified, we look for evidence that public policy choices may have promoted and enhanced a metro area's ability to succeed and to regain control of its own economic destiny. Methodologically, we construct a regression model which identifies the …

Thinking About The Future Of Small Metropolitan Areas, George A. Erickcek, Hannah J. Mckinney

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Southcentral Michigan Five-Year Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy: Final Report, George Erickcek, Don Edgerly, Brian Pittelko, Claudette Robey, Bridget Timmeney

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

How Can A Community Respond To The Economic Downturn?, George A. Erickcek, Brad R. Watts

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impact Of Saint Mary's Hauenstein Center On The Greater Grand Rapids Area, George A. Erickcek

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Talent 2025: Assessment Of The West Michigan Talent Development System, George Erickcek, Brian Pittelko, Bridget Timmeney, Brad Watts

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Economic Development Recommendations That Focus On The "Working Poor": Lessons From Waco, George Erickcek, Don Edgerly, Brian Pittelko, Claudette Robey, Bridget Timmeney, Jim Robey

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Identification Of The Key Economic And Social Issues Facing The Greater Battle Creek Area, George A. Erickcek

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

An Economic Opportunity Concept For The Northside Of The City Of Kalamazoo, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek

George A. Erickcek

No abstract provided.

Thoughts On American Manufacturing Decline And Revitalization, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Saturn And State Economic Development, Timothy J. Bartik, Charles Becker, Steve Lake, John Bush

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

What Should Michigan Be Doing To Promote Long-Run Economic Development?, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

This paper argues that Michigan can take cost-effective actions to significantly improve the primary state economic development goal: higher per capita income of Michigan's residents. Higher per capita income of Michigan's residents can be achieved through state policy actions that use cost-effective means to either lower the marginal costs of businesses that expand in the state, or boost the skills of state residents. In this paper, I offer eight ideas for how to lower marginal business costs and boost skills. Four of these ideas focus on lowering marginal business costs. Four other ideas focus on boosting skills. For each of …

Comments On Papers By Michael Wasylenko And Ronald Fisher, Timothy J. Bartik

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

An Economic Opportunity Concept For The Northside Of The City Of Kalamazoo, Timothy J. Bartik, George A. Erickcek

Timothy J. Bartik

No abstract provided.

Highway Infrastructure: Policy Issues For Regions, Randall W. Eberts

Randall W. Eberts

No abstract provided.

Using The American Community Survey To Build A Dashboard Of Regional Economic Indicators, Randall W. Eberts

Randall W. Eberts

No abstract provided.

Economic Impact Of Businesses Assisted By Southwest Michigan First, George A. Erickcek, Randall W. Eberts

Randall W. Eberts

This report estimates the contribution to the Kalamazoo-Portage MSA's economy by businesses that have received substantial assistance from Southwest Michigan First (SMF), a private, not-for-profit economic development agency serving the greater Kalamazoo region. The report examines the trends in employment, gross regional product, and wages and salaries generated by the 105 firms that SMF staff identified as receiving substantial assistance from SMF between 2000 and 2008. The estimates extend through the year 2012 in order to capture the employment projections offered by some of the assisted firms. The study also provides upper bound estimates of the benefit-cost ratio of the …

Rebuilding Distressed Regions: Problem Diagnosis And Tracking, Randall W. Eberts

Randall W. Eberts

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Regional Collaborations For Economic Development, Kevin Hollenbeck, Nancy Hewat

Kevin Hollenbeck

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Regional Collaborations For Economic Development: Lessons From The Employment And Training Adminsitration's Wired Initiative, Kevin Hollenbeck, Nancy Hewat

Kevin Hollenbeck

No abstract provided.

L’Emploi Informel Dans Les Économies Développées Et En Développement: Quelles Perspectives, Quelles Interventions?, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Pennsylvania’S True Commonwealth: The State Of Manufacturing – Challenges And Opportunities (Full Report), Edward W. Hill, John R. Brandt, Iryna Lendel, Faith Noble, Ellen Cyran, Charles Post, Jim Samuel, Fran Stewart

Ellen Cyran

The Industrial Resource Center Network of Pennsylvania is the state’s affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. Both the IRC program and the MEP have longstanding traditions of self-assessment and evolution as ways of being accountable to the public and of promoting continuous improvement. The IRC program and the MEP are charged with helping manufacturing in general, and small to midsized manufacturers in particular, improve their competitive position. The IRC program uses the outcomes from these assessments to think about the challenges their constituents face due to rapid evolution in the globally competitive …

Northeast Ohio Employment And Wage Trends: Economic Brief, Winter 2005, Ziona Austrian Ph.D.

Ziona Austrian

This brief is the first release of a quarterly publication that will provide a broad overview of employment and wage trends for Northeast Ohio (NEO). Its objective is to provide a quick, current, and informative report of the region’s jobs. NEO is defined as a 14-county area, which is composed of four metro areas – Cleveland, Akron, Canton, and Youngstown – and three additional adjacent counties (Ashtabula, Columbiana, and Wayne). This brief begins with longer-term analysis followed by short-term trends from the year 2000 using the 20 two-digit industrial sectors of the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS).

Northeast Ohio Employment And Wage Trends: Economic Brief, January 2006, Ziona Austrian Ph.D.

Ziona Austrian

This brief is a second release of a publication that provides a broad overview of employment and wage trends for Northeast Ohio (NEO). It updates the first brief with data for the first quarters of 2004 and 2005. Its objective is to provide a quick, current, and informative report on the region’s economy. NEO is defined as a 14-county area composed of four metro areas – Cleveland, Akron, Canton, and Youngstown – and three additional adjacent counties (Ashtabula, Columbiana, and Wayne). This brief begins with longer-term analysis from 1993 followed by short-term trends from the first quarter of 2003 through …

Explaining The Persistence Of The Informal Economy In Central And Eastern Europe: Some Lessons From Moscow, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

To evaluate critically the competing explanations for the persistence of the informal economy that variously represent this sphere as a residue, by-product, alternative and/or complement to the formal economy, this paper reports a survey of livelihood practices in 313 Moscow households. The finding is that the majority of households primarily depend on informal work to secure their livelihood and that although each and every theorisation is wholly valid with regard to particular types of informal work and/or specific population groups, no one articulation fully captures the diverse nature and multiple meanings of the informal economy in contemporary Moscow. The paper …

Theorizing The Self-Service Economy: A Case Study Of Do-It-Yourself (Diy) Activity, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Recently, it has become increasingly recognised that self-servicing is a growing rather than declining phenomenon. To explain this, a range of competing theories have emerged which variously portray those engaged in self-servicing either as rational economic actors, dupes, seekers of self-identity, or simply doing so out of necessity or choice. This paper evaluates critically the validity of these rival explanations. To do this, the extent of, and reasons for, self-servicing in the domestic realm is empirically evaluated through an internet survey of 5,500 people living in the city of Sheffield in England. This resulted in 418 valid responses (a 7.6 …