Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Southern Nevada Regional Industrial Study, Brookings Mountain West, Center For Business And Economic Research, Transportation Research Center

Policy Briefs and Reports

Recognizing the ongoing need to diversify the Southern Nevada economy, in 2023 GOED commissioned Brookings Mountain West, the UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research, and the UNLV Transportation Research Center to evaluate how Southern Nevada can leverage its geography and connectivity to neighboring states and metros at the megapolitan level to pursue industrial opportunities in the face of shifting global supply chains, diminishing developable land, the need for efficient management of the regional water supply, and the availability of unprecedented federal resources to support clean energy development, manufacturing, electrification of transportation systems, and supply-chain resiliency.

The study builds on …

Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment In Nevada, Brad Wimmer

Policy Briefs and Reports

The $45.45 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program’s primary objective is to extend broadband service to all unserved and underserved locations in the U.S. and its territories. Several industry studies predict that the BEAD program can meet its goal of providing universal access to broadband service if eligible entities execute their grant programs well. My review of the BEAD program indicates that policy makers can enhance the likelihood of program success by designing competitive grant programs that give applicants the incentive to undercut the subsidies proposed by their rivals and provide applicants the flexibility to design networks that …

Strengthening The Southern Nevada Workforce Pipeline, Katie M. Gilbertson

Policy Briefs and Reports

This report analyzes the Southern Nevada employment ecosystem by utilizing occupational clusters recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor. The first section examines occupations in the tourism industry using three occupational clusters: hospitality and leisure; arts, audio/video technology and communications; and the transportation, distribution, and logistics. Next, this report utilizes the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance’s 2022 Workforce Blueprint to identify the top 15 in-demand occupations for Southern Nevada and occupational clusters. A case study of the MGM College Opportunity Program (COP) is presented to demonstrate an existing workforce training program that promotes upward mobility of leisure and hospitality employees …

The Great Student Swap, Aaron Klein

Policy Briefs and Reports

For the last twenty years, nearly every flagship university in the U.S. has been decreasing its share of in-state students and enrolling more students from out of state, a phenomenon I call the “Great Student Swap.” Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I examine every “flagship” public university by comparing incoming first year students from 2002 through 2018 (those who would have graduated in the spring 2022 assuming the traditional four-year timeframe for completion). I find that the share of out-of-state students has risen by an average of 55 percent since 2002 and that 48 of …

A 2020 Census Portrait Of America’S Largest Metro Areas: Population Growth, Diversity, Segregation, And Youth, William Frey

Policy Briefs and Reports

The nation’s major metropolitan areas—those with populations exceeding 1 million, which are home to nearly six in 10 Americans—have been a focal point of the nation’s economic vibrancy, politics, and racial and ethnic diversity. The 2020 census provides an opportunity to see how they fared in the 2010-2020 decade. Unlike the previous decade, major metro areas grew more sharply than their smaller-sized counterparts, and their cities showed growth surges even in a decade when the nation’s population registered historically low growth. Moreover, the increased racial and ethnic diversity that characterized the nation is especially concentrated in major metro areas and, …

The Rise Of Southern Nevada As A Cluster For Metropolitan Transit Technology Innovations, Arthur C. Nelson

Policy Briefs and Reports

Southern Nevada is emerging as the nation’s leader in private sector-driven innovations in transportation technologies. From the humble beginnings of a monorail system serving a portion of major hotel and gaming venues along the Las Vegas Strip, now supplemented by an array of people movers, Southern Nevada continues to attract transit innovations in tunneling, Hyperloop, and driverless vehicle delivery technologies. The region may soon anchor a high-speed rail system connecting Southern Nevada to Los Angeles. The purpose of this briefing paper is to frame the nature of this emerging transportation cluster and the opportunities this creates for Southern Nevada to …

Interstate 11: The Road To Prosperity In Nevada, Arthur C. Nelson

Policy Briefs and Reports

Interstate 11 (I-11) offers Nevada a unique opportunity to advance the economic development prospects of one of the state’s most economically challenged areas: Elko and eastern Nevada. Although the state used a qualitative system to choose a western route for I-11, this process may not have considered fully the costs of extending I-11 to Canada in a cost-effective manner or in a manner consistent with I-11 purposes, especially avoiding congested areas. This briefing report reviews the history and purposes of I-11; summarizes the I-11 route options; considers how I-11 might extend to Canada in a way that is consistent with …

How Did Homelessness Change During The Great Recession And Recovery?, Jenny Schuetz, Matthew Ring

Policy Briefs and Reports

Job losses from the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated housing insecurity among low-income renters over the past year. Federal, state, and local policymakers have created temporary measures to help reduce displacement among people who have lost their jobs, but there is considerable uncertainty about what will happen when these temporary measures end. To gain insight into how homelessness changes over macroeconomic cycles, we examine changes in homelessness rates from 2007 to 2020. Our analysis focuses on four metro areas that were particularly hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Riverside. Overall homelessness rates declined in all metros …

“You Never Know” Work And Precarity In Las Vegas Before And During Covid-19, Richard Reeves, Morgan Welch, Hannah Van Drie

Policy Briefs and Reports

In this brief we examine work and work-based policies in Las Vegas, Nevada – a theme that emerged strongly from focus group data collected in the fall of 2019. The middle-class Americans we talked with were concerned about upward mobility, the changing landscape of work as a result of automation and skills training, scheduling uncertainty, and employee benefits like time off and paid leave. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated these pre-existing issues for many workers. Much of the policy agenda in the last year has been understandably reactionary, as policymakers addressed immediate issues such as unemployment insurance, keeping workers …

Improving K-12 Education For Hispanic Students In Las Vegas And Beyond, Richard Reeves, Ember Smith

Policy Briefs and Reports

Public K-12 education serves as a launching pad for economic mobility and opportunity, preparing students for college or a good-paying job. Despite K-12 education’s influence on later-in-life outcomes, schools often underserve students of color. Hispanic students in particular constitute a significant and growing portion of the U.S. student population yet are often overlooked in education literature because they are not the lowest performing demographic. In this brief, we examine how well public K-12 education serves Hispanic students in Clark County, where nearly half of students are Hispanic. We then consider factors that may influence student performance, including both in-school factors …

Explaining The Economic Impact Of Covid-19: Core Industries And The Hispanic Workforce, Aaron Klein, Ember Smith

Policy Briefs and Reports

As the United States prepares for a COVID-19 recovery, policymakers need to understand why some cities and communities were more vulnerable to the pandemic’s economic consequences than others. In this paper, we consider the association between a city’s core industry, its economic susceptibility to the pandemic, and the recession’s racially disparate impact across six select metropolitan areas. We find that areas with economies that rely on the movement of people—like Las Vegas with tourism—faced substantially higher unemployment at the end of 2020 than cities with core industries based on the movement of information. Further, we find the hardest-hit areas have …

Nevada's Plan For Recovery And Resilience, Sri International, Rcg Economics, Brookings Mountain West

Policy Briefs and Reports

The report that follows contains the following components:

• An economic forecast from RCG Economics on the situation expected for Nevada—GDP and employment—in the fall of 2021 (subject to all the present uncertainties faced by Nevada and the country as a whole).
• A series of immediate actions, in which GOED plays a leadership role, to shelter and prepare for recovery key components of Nevada’s economy. The particular focus is on “Main Street” and small and medium sized businesses.
• A set of visionary strategies, firmly grounded in Nevada’s underlying assets, that will accelerate the diversification of the state’s economy and the transition …

Improving Health Care In Nevada, Ember Smith, Kaylie Pattni

Policy Briefs and Reports

Across the United States, improvements in health outcomes lag while health care costs rapidly rise. Medical personnel and resource shortages combined with high underinsured and uninsured rates further complicate access to quality, affordable health care. In order to better understand state-level solutions, we explore factors that contribute to health care deficiencies and emphasize Nevada’s unique obstacles.

The Economic Impact Of Covid-19: Rebuilding The Las Vegas Economy, Jaewon Lim

Policy Briefs and Reports

This study analyzes the recent trends of monthly visitors to the Las Vegas-ParadiseHenderson, NV metropolitan statistical area (MSA) for the first five months of 2020. In addition, six scenarios for the seven-month period of June through December 2020 estimate the net loss of visitors to Southern Nevada and the impact for the state economy in terms of employment, income, the total value added (contribution to Gross State Product), output sales, and state and local tax revenues. The counter-factual scenario – projecting the regional economy if no COVID-19 outbreak occurred – serves as a baseline scenario that allows measurement of the …

The Las Vegas Medical District And The Unlv School Of Medicine: An Economic Analysis And Tax Revenue Study, Jaewon Lim, Robert E. Lang, Sabrina Wang

Policy Briefs and Reports

In the 2011 report, “Unify, Regionalize, Diversify,” The Brookings Institution, SRI International, and Brookings Mountain West detailed Las Vegas’s experiences during and after the Great Recession, and identified the health and medical industry as a particularly potent opportunity for economic diversification – one that could improve health outcomes while also generating sustainable economic activity and high-quality jobs. The Las Vegas Metro medical industry began growing in 2006, grew during the Great Recession, and is expected to continue to grow for the next 10-year period spurred by the rapidly growing population in Southern Nevada. The establishment and launch of the UNLV …