SSTI Digest

David Rooney will replace Tyler Fairbank as president of the Berkshire Economic Development Corp., effective next month. Rooney leaves the Empire State Development Corp. as its regional director.

Helene Schember became the first executive director of the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future Dec. 3, joining the center as its first full-time staff member.

Peggy Tadej has left the National Association of Regional Councils to work in research at the Department of Transportation for the District of Columbia.

Kansas University has appointed Steve Warren as its first full-time vice provost for research and graduate studies.

The DC Technology Council and the Washington, DC Economic Partnership have joined to form a new association that will keep the name Washington, DC Economic Partnership.

According to the latest index from JointVenture Silicon Valley, 2007 looks like a pretty good year compared to 2006 when you look at many standard measures of economic performance. There were 28,000 new jobs created, a 1.5 percent increase in population, and 21 percent growth in solar and wind energy installations. Water use also dropped 6 percent, venture capital investments were up 11 percent, median household income rose, and city revenues were up 37 percent.   A closer look at some of the socio-economic indicators in the Silicon Valley Index, first published in 1995, suggests all is not good for the sustainability of the Valley’s economy, however. Foreclosure rates were four times higher than the previous year, high school graduation rates dropped, and reading proficiencies dropped.   Receiving special attention in this year’s Index are the challenges facing middle-wage earners trying to keep or find employment opportunities with growing salaries or maintaining benefits. The number of these workers in the Valley - defined as earning $30,000 to $80,000 - dropped by 60,000 individuals during the 2002-2006 period. Lower-wage…

The agricultural states that lie east of the Rocky Mountains are at the center of an escalating decline in population, far exceeding that of other regions of the country. Of particular concern is the effect of population loss among young, educated workers on the states’ economies, resulting in a brain drain that could leave the region lagging the rest of the nation for many years to come.   A number of areas cry “brain drain” whenever they see statistics for where graduates go after finishing college. Often, those arguments are made without looking at the more useful measure of net migration, the result of considering in-migration as well as out-migration.   One look at the map of the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates for 2006, published in a recent issue of The Economist, graphically illustrates where brain drain is really occurring. And, brain drain is mainly on the plains. The extent of population loss stretching from eastern Montana to west Texas leads the country. The Economist article states that certain areas of the Great Plains are more sparsely populated now than they were in the late 19th century when…

In recent years, Iowa, like many midwestern states, has experienced a boom in ethanol production. Iowa's natural competitive advantage in growing and processing corn has helped it to move to the forefront of the emerging biofuels industry. The state provides numerous incentives and assistance programs through its Department of Natural Resources to help spur the creation of ethanol-related companies and jobs. A new report by Iowa State University economist David Swenson, however, argues that even if these programs are successful at building a strong ethanol industry, the overall economic impact of this success would be smaller than predicted.   Swenson argues in The Economic Impact of Ethanol Production in Iowa that many projections of the economic impact of corn ethanol suffer from improper input-output modeling and frequently overestimate the number of jobs that could be created by the industry. He found that the ethanol boom that occurred between 2000 and 2005 did not lead to the creation of many construction jobs. Instead, much of that construction work was undertaken by out-of-state firms that brought specialized workers with them. …

The North Carolina Board of Science and Technology, for a long time serving mostly in an advisory capacity to Gov. Mike Easley, increasingly is more involved in the direct delivery of technology-based economic development programs. The latest addition to its growing portfolio of programs is a $1 million Green Business Fund to help small businesses commercialize promising green and alternative energy technologies.   Under the new program, the Board will provide grants of up to $100,000 to North Carolina-based small businesses with 100 or fewer employees. The award process will be competitive, with priority given to proposals that aid in the following: Development of the biofuels industry in the state; Development of the green building industry in the state; and/or, Attraction and leverage of private sector investments and entrepreneurial growth in environmentally conscious clean technology and renewable energy products and businesses. The current solicitation for applications, set to close April 30, 2008, is the first for the program authorized by the North Carolina General Assembly during the 2006-2007 session. More…

New Mexico’s 2008 legislative session wrapped up last week, resulting in no final action on several TBED-related bills and leading Gov. Bill Richardson to call a special legislative session to address his health care reform agenda.   Gov. Richardson signed the General Appropriations Act of 2009 and the Junior Budget Bill with minimal vetoes but vetoed a Capital Outlay package, which included $2 million to the board of regents of Northern New Mexico for a proposed solar energy research park ($1 million less than requested) and $3.5 million for clean energy grants to public entities for innovative energy projects within the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department. The legislature passed the capital bill again, giving the governor until March 5 to approve it with individual line-item vetoes, if he deems necessary.   Lawmakers approved $14 million last year for the state’s new Supercomputer – $11 million to purchase the computer and $3 million to set up gateways at the state’s research universities. This year, $2.5 million was appropriated for staffing and operating expenses for the New Mexico Computing…

Research-based companies draw much of their advantage in the market from their investment in technology development and the knowledge capital they have accumulated over time. Since this knowledge represents potential revenue, many companies jealously guard their intellectual property (IP) with non-compete clauses and other legal contracts with their employees. No company, however, can completely stop the outward flow of information. One of the most important means by which information can escape is through the movement of employees from one job to another. Reputations for Toughness in Patent Enforcement: Implications for Knowledge Spillovers via Inventor Mobility, a recent paper by Rajshree Agarwal, Martin Ganco and Rosemarie Ziedonis, states that a company’s reputation for intellectual property enforcement can significantly reduce the value lost through employee movement.   In their examination of IP enforcement and "job hopping" in the semiconductor industry, Agarwal et al. find that a firm's reputation for litigiousness plays a major role in the decision-making process of ex-employees. A strong reputation can effectively prevent former employees…

A consistent claim in many competitiveness reports and economic development strategies is the need to increase the number of scientists and engineers in a given geographic area. But are there other factors, when coupled with the presence of scientists and engineers, that influence local long-term employment growth more than others?   A recent paper from Desmond Beckstead, W. Mark Brown and Guy Gellatly explores this question and examines the factors that influence the number of scientists and engineers in cities. In Cities and Growth: The Left Brain of North American Cities: Scientists and Engineers and Urban Growth, Beckstead et al. find that cities concentrated with diverse mixtures of people with degrees, combined with science and engineering employment, experience the highest rates of long-term employment growth.   The authors use census data on 242 Canadian and U.S. cities to track employment numbers from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. According to their research, the concentration of people in a city with a “cultural” background is comparatively less influential than the concentration of people with a broad…