Increasing the Economic Development Benefits of Higher Education in Michigan

This paper considers how a state such as Michigan can increase the economic development benefits of higher education. Research evidence suggests that higher education increases local economic development principally by increasing the quality of the local workforce, and secondarily by increasing local innovative ideas. These economic development benefits of higher education can be increased by: 1) competent management of conventional economic development programs that focus on business attraction and retention; 2) policies that focus on increasing local job skills by educating the state's residents, as opposed to attracting in-migrants; 3) policies that address specific "market failures" in how higher education leads to increased workforce quality or business innovations.education, higher, economic, development, Michigan, Bartik, Upjohn

Economic Development Strategies

This paper provides a guide to economic development policies for local government managers. Local economic development policies today include not only tax subsidies for branch plants, but also job training to provide workers to businesses, advice and support services for potential entrepreneurs, and extension services to help businesses modernize and export. To help local government managers, this paper suggests a number of guiding principles, including: local economic development should be pursued cooperatively across the local labor market; economic development programs should consider the quality of jobs created; tax subsidies are expensive per job created; development subsidies are more effective if the subsidy is frontloaded; high unemployment areas should be more aggressive than low unemployment areas in promoting job growth; many economic development services can be cheaply evaluated by business surveys.local, economic, development, Bartik

Economic Development Benefits of Preschool Expansion in Kalamazoo County

This paper examines the effects of preschool expansion in Kalamazoo County on the county’s economic development. Effects on the county’s economic development are defined as effects on the employment and earnings of county residents. The estimated effects are found to be large relative to the costs. In addition to their relevance to Kalamazoo County, these simulations illustrate how the analysis presented in two previous papers (Bartik 2006, 2008) can be done for an individual county or metropolitan area. Such simulations may be of interest to other counties or metropolitan areas that are considering expansions in early childhood programs.preschool education, economic development, community development, bartik, kalamazoo

Local Economic Development Policies

This chapter seeks to provide useful advice for local government policy towards economic development programs. The chapter: reviews the size and scope of local economic development programs in the United States; critically analyzes the various rationales offered for these programs; makes recommendations for what local policy should do about business attraction and incentives, business retention, new business development, high technology development, brownfield development, distressed neighborhoods, and downtowns; and discusses how local economic development programs should be organized, managed, and evaluated.local, regional, economic, development, Bartik, Upjohn

What Should the Federal Government Be Doing About Urban Economic Development?

The federal government should focus its policies towards economic development on areas in which the federal government has some unique advantages. Federal policy should: (1) discourage financial subsidies to specific large firms by state and local governments; (2) expand the federal role in economic development services in which national action has some special advantages, such as developing information on foreign markets, encouraging large national banks to be more involved in economic development, supporting the development of the "Information Superhighway," and encouraging new technology development; (3) provide modest support for state and local efforts to increase business productivity through technology extension efforts and customized job training programs; (4) encourage more and higher quality evaluation of state and local economic development programs; (5) support experiments that link economic development efforts with hiring the disadvantaged; (6) relax federal regulations, such as regulations on the cleanup of older industrial sites, that impede local economic development.urban, economic, development, federal, government, Bartik

Evaluating the Impacts of Local Economic Development Policies On Local Economic Outcomes: What Has Been Done and What is Doable?

This paper argues that more rigorous evaluations of local economic development policies are feasible. Programs that aid selected small firms can be rigorously evaluated using an experimental approach, without excluding firms from assistance, by randomly assigning some firms to receive more intense marketing efforts by the program. Programs that aid distressed local areas can be rigorously evaluated by random assignment of the program among eligible distressed areas. If an experiment cannot be done, a variety of statistical approaches can be used to compare firms or areas that use the program with comparison groups of firms or areas that do not use the program. These statistical analyses should be supplemented with surveys and focus groups with businesses that use the program, which give some insight into why the program works or doesn't work. Evaluations should go beyond the effects of programs on business growth to effects on local fiscal health and the earnings of the unemployed. Evaluations using rigorous approaches suggest that programs providing information services to small manufacturers are frequently effective. Programs targeting distressed areas are ineffective unless great resources are used over a lengthy period.evaluation, local, regional, economic, development, Bartik, Upjohn

The Effects of Metropolitan Job Growth on the Size Distribution of Family Income

This paper examines how a metropolitan area's job growth affects its income distribution. The research uses annual Current Population Survey data on the income distribution in different metropolitan areas from 1979 through 1988. Faster metropolitan job growth increases real family income in the lowest income quintile by a significantly greater percentage than for the average family. Metropolitan job growth also increases the value of property owned by upper income quintiles, but property value effects are not large enough to offset the progressive effects of growth on labor income. Simulations indicate that economic development programs to increase metropolitan job growth will have a progressive effect if the cost per job created is low, and these costs are financed by personal taxes. But economic development programs with a high cost per job created, or financed by cutting social welfare programs, will have a net negative effect on the lowest income quintile.earnings, wages, job, growth, family, income, Bartik, economic, development, urban

How Do the Effects of Local Growth on Employment Rates Vary With Initial Labor Market Conditions

This paper examines how the effects of increased employment growth on a metropolitan area’s employment to population ratio varies with the initial tightness of the metropolitan area’s labor market. This examination is relevant to evaluating the benefits of local economic development policies in different metropolitan areas. Much of the benefits of such policies are in higher employment rates. The empirical estimates suggest that the effectiveness of employment growth in increasing the employment to population ratio is lower in metropolitan areas with “tight” labor markets. In addition, some estimates suggest that growth has the greatest long-run effects on the employment to population ratio in metropolitan areas with some looseness in labor market conditions, compared to metropolitan areas with the most tight or most loose labor market conditions. Growth pays off the most for metropolitan areas that have above-average labor market problems, but not too much above average.local growth, employment, economic development, metropolitan, tight labor market, employment to population ratio, bartik

Solving the Many Problems with Inner City Jobs

Inner-city business development is often proposed as a solution to inner-city poverty. However, research evidence suggests that creating new jobs in the inner city is unlikely by itself to significantly increase the employment or earnings of the inner city poor. Public subsidies for inner city business development may be justified by greater environmental, congestion, and fiscal benefits of inner city vs. suburban business location decisions. The research evidence suggests that some boost in inner city business development may be provided by a combination of economic development incentives with enhanced public services. A different set of policies must be used to increase the earnings of the inner city poor. These employment solutions to inner city poverty should include two components; (1) creating more effective labor market intermediaries to make it easier for inner-city residents to find good jobs and for employers throughout the metropolitan area to find good inner city workers; (2) enhancing the job skills of the inner-city poor, particularly their "soft skills", by training programs that have closer ties to employers and incorporate subsidized employment experience. Given the magnitude of the poverty problem, any realistic policy to significantly reduce inner-city poverty through enhanced earnings will require tens of billions of dollars of annual government spending.wages, inner city, earnings, poverty, welfare, labor demand, Bartik

The Labor Supply Effects of Welfare Reform

Will welfare reform increase unemployment and reduce wages? The answer depends in part on how much welfare reform increases labor supply. This paper considers the labor supply effects of the welfare reforms that have occurred since 1993, when President Clinton entered office with a promise to "end welfare as we know it." The paper reviews previous estimates, and provides new estimates, of how many additional labor force participants have entered the labor force due to welfare reform. I estimate that welfare reform from 1993-96 increased the U.S. labor force by between 100,000 and 300,000 persons. Between 1996, when the major federal welfare reform bill was enacted, and 1998, welfare reform has probably increased the U.S. labor force by at least another 300,000 persons. Assuming current policy trends continue, welfare reform may add another half-million to one-million labor force participants between 1998 and 2005. The cumulative impact of welfare reform from 1993-2005 is likely to add between one and one-and-a-half million persons to the U.S. labor force. This additional labor supply is not huge compared to the U.S. labor force, so welfare reform is unlikely to have large long-run effects on overall wages and unemployment. However, this additional labor supply is large compared to likely growth in labor demand for less-educated women over the 1993-2005 period. As a result, welfare reform is likely to have significant effects on the wages and unemployment rates of less-educated women during the 1993-2005 period.welfare, reform, labor, supply, Bartik