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Full-Text Articles in Economic Policy

Clusters And Strategy In Regional Economic Development, Edward Feser Dec 2009

Clusters And Strategy In Regional Economic Development, Edward Feser

Edward J Feser

Many economic development practitioners view cluster theory and analysis as constituting a general approach to strategy making in economic development, which may lead them to prioritize policy and planning interventions that cannot address the actual development challenges in their cities and regions. This paper discusses the distinction between strategy formation and strategic planning, where the latter is the programming of development strategies that are identified through a blend of experience, intuition, and analysis. Cluster theories and analytical tools can provide useful informational inputs into a strategy making effort and they can also be helpful for programming specific interventions (i.e., strategic …


Evaluating Economic Development Programs Using Matched Employee‐Employer Data In A Quasi‐ Experimental Framework, Henry C. Renski Nov 2009

Evaluating Economic Development Programs Using Matched Employee‐Employer Data In A Quasi‐ Experimental Framework, Henry C. Renski

Henry C Renski

In the wake of shrinking public coffers, policy makers are demanding greater accountability from their economic development initiatives. In a discipline known for ‘claiming anything that falls,’ attempts to objectively evaluate economic development programs have been stymied by ill-suited data sources and methods. Survey research is expensive and responding firms have an incentive to lie about the effectiveness of subsidies. Publicly available data on employment, wages, and other outcomes are highly aggregated and lack the power to capture impacts from anything other than the most dramatic, large-scale initiatives. Confidential employee- and establishment-level (micro) data holds considerable promise for more rigorous …