Developing employability in higher education music

The development of employability in higher music education concerns students, musicians, educators, administrators and funding bodies, and yet employability is both impossible to measure and poorly defined. This paper sets the context for a set of short papers that explore employability from the perspective of music. Because many of the issues they raise have relevance across the creative industries, this paper discusses research that positions them within this broader context. The paper highlights the need for both the functional (how-to) aspects of employability and those that are cognitive: development of students' cognitive dispositions and their capacity to engage as professionals. As such, the paper argues that employability requires collaborative action on three fronts: enhancement of the ways in which employment outcomes are defined and measured; initiatives that engage students in career- and life-relevant activities; and advocacy work that re-aligns stakeholder perceptions of graduate work and employability itself

Are Local Economic Development Incentives Promoting Job Growth? An Empirical Case Study

At a time when cities are competing with one another to attract or retain jobs within a globalizing economy, city governments are providing an array of financial incentives to stimulate job growth and retain existing jobs, particularly in high cost locations. This paper provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of datasets on economic development incentives in New York City over the last fifteen years. The evidence on job retention and creation is mixed. Although many companies do not meet their agreed-upon job targets in absolute terms, the evidence suggests that companies receiving subsidies outperform their respective industries in terms of employment growth, that is, the grow more, or decline less. We emphasize that this finding is difficult to interpret, since firms receiving incentives may not be representative of the industry as a whole. In other words, their above-average performance may simply reflect the fact that the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) selects economically promising companies within manufacturing (or other industries) when granting incentives. At the same time, it is also possible that receiving incentives helps these companies to become stronger