Tech Starts: High-Technology Business Formation and Job Creation in the United States

New and young businesses -- as opposed to small businesses generally -- play an outsized role in net job creation in the United States. But not all new businesses are the same -- the substantial majority of nascent entrepreneurs do not intend to grow their businesses significantly or innovate, and many more never do. Differentiating growth-oriented "startups" from the rest of young businesses is an important distinction that has been underrepresented in research on business dynamics and in small business policy.To advance the conversation, we contrast business and job creation dynamics in the entire U.S. private sector with the innovative high-tech sector -- defined here as the group of industries with very high shares of employees in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. We highlight these differences at the national level, as well as detailing regions throughout the country where high-tech startups are being formed each year. The major findings include:* The high-tech sector and the information and communications technology (ICT) segment of high-tech are important contributors to entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy. During the last three decades, the high-tech sector was 23 percent more likely and ICT 48 percent more likely than the private sector as a whole to witness a new business formation.* High-tech firm births were 69 percent highe rin 2011 compared with 1980; they were 210 percent higher for ICT and 9 percent lower for the private sector as a whole during the same period. This is important because the productivity growth and job creation unleashed by these new and young firms -- aged less than five years -- require a continual flow of births each year.* Of new and young firms, high-tech companies play an outsized role in job creation. High-tech businesses start lean but grow rapidly in the early years, and their job creation is so robust that it offsets job losses from early-stage business failures. This is a key distinction from young firms across the entire private sector, where net job losses resulting from the high rate of early-stage failures are substantial.* Young firms exhibit an "up-or-out" dynamic,where they tend to either fail or grow rapidly in the early years. The job-creating strength of surviving young firms, while strong for young businesses across the private sector as a whole, is especially distinct for high-tech startups: the net job creation rate of these surviving young firms is twice as robust.* High-tech and ICT firm formations are becoming increasingly geographically dispersed. As technological advancement allows for the production of high-tech goods and services in a wider set of areas, many regions are catching up. The opposite has been true for the private sector as a whole, where new business growth has been occurring most in regions with already higher rates of new business formation

Do financial education programs work?

In this paper we provide a comprehensive critical analysis of research that has investigated the impact of financial education programs on consumer financial behavior. In light of the evidence, we recommend that future programs be highly targeted towards a specific audience and area of financial activity (e.g. homeownership or credit card counseling, etc.), and that this training occurs just before the corresponding financial event (e.g. purchase of a home or use of a credit card, etc.).Financial literacy

Snowmobiling in Maine: Economic Contributions and Registered Maine Guides

Snowmobiling has been a popular winter pastime in Maine for decades. During the 2018-2019 snowmobiling season, nearly 85,000 snowmobiles were registered in Maine by both residents and non-resident snowmobile riders. While registrations show how many snowmobile owners are riding in Maine, an increasing part of the sport is now in rentals, which allows new or intermittent snowmobile riders to participate in the activity while avoiding the high price of modern machines. Another aspect of snowmobiling involves hiring Registered Maine Guides, by both renters and snowmobile owners, to lead tours. The Registered Maine Guide program standardizes the licensing procedure for all snowmobile guides who operate in Maine alongside these rental businesses. This research project examined two aspects of snowmobiling from different perspectives in order to elucidate the economic contribution of the sport, and the potential role of renters and guides in supporting the sport in the future. First, the research team used a system of mail surveys to collect data on how snowmobilers contribute to the Maine economy by measuring how snowmobilers spend money on snowmobile related purchases. This data was compiled to find the average spending per-snowmobile and subsequently multiplied by the number of registered snowmobiles in the state during the 2018-2019 season. Indirect and induced effects of this spending was calculated using Economic Impact Analysis for Planning (IMPLAN) software. The combination of the direct, indirect, and induced effects of the spending showed that snowmobiling contributed approximately $606 million to the Maine economy during the 2018-2019 season. Second, the research team used intercept surveying, and interviews with snowmobile renters and Maine Snowmobile Guides, to determine how the Maine Guide program effects renters’ perceptions of snowmobile guides in the state. This revealed a support for a standardized certification system for guides in Maine, but also showed a lack of knowledge of the program among renters, and a desire for increased efforts from the state to disseminate information about the program from Maine Guides interviewed

The Return of Business Creation

Freshly released government data show that new business formation rebounded in 2011, after four years of decline, from the depths of the Great Recession. This is a welcome development -- new businesses are the engine of job creation in the United States economy and an important source of innovation and productivity. Perhaps most importantly, the rise in new business formation between 2010 and 2011 was geographically dispersed throughout the United States.While the rise of new business creation in 2011 is a significant development -- it is the first annual gain in five years and the largest percentage annual increase in nearly a decade -- the bulk of this paper examines two classes of new businesses that most closely resemble entrepreneurship: companies less than one year old with one to four employees and those with fine to nine. This analysis finds that the smallest of these new firms represent most of the increase in firm formation in 2011:* New companies with one to four employees comprise the vast majority of new businesses formed each year, accounting for, on average, 86 percent of new firms since the late 1970s in the BDS data. * Job creation at new businesses of all sizes increased by 4.3 percent, and rose by 5.4 percent in new companies with one to four employees, reversing four consecutive years of decline for those smallest companies. * Companies less than one year old with one tofour employees have created, on average, more than 1 million jobs per year over the past three decades; those with five to nine employees have added, on average, half a million jobs per year. * With a promise of more detailed analysis infuture reports, this paper presents maps that illustrate the increased share of new business formation in most states and metro areas across the nation

The Economic Contribution of Snowmobiling in Maine

Snowmobiling has been a popular winter pastime in Maine for decades. During the 2018-2019 snowmobiling season, nearly 60,000 snowmobiles were registered in Maine by resident snowmobilers, and over 25,000 snowmobiles were registered by non-residents. Since the 1998 report An Economic Evaluation of Snowmobiling in Maine, overall registrations have increased, and registrations among non-residents have more than doubled. There has been no comprehensive evaluation of snowmobiling in Maine since the 1998 report completed by the University of Maine in collaboration with the Maine Snowmobile Association and State of Maine Snowmobile Program. In order to update the information on snowmobiling related expenditures, the sociodemographic characteristics of snowmobilers in Maine, and the opinions of Maine snowmobilers on snowmobiling tourism infrastructure and issues related to snowmobiling in Maine today, a new study was commissioned by the State of Maine Snowmobile Program and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry through the University of Maine’s School of Forest Resources. The results are contained in this report. The results conclude that snowmobiling generated $459 million in direct spending across many sectors during the 2018-2019 season. Accounting for indirect and induced economic activity, the contribution of snowmobiling to Maine’s economy was over$606 million. Snowmobiling generates a significant amount of spending during the winter in Maine, especially in the rural areas which benefit from snowmobiling activity. Snowmobile related spending also directly supports 2,279 jobs in the state of Maine and indirect and induced effects of the spending support an additional 1,060 jobs. Trip-related spending accounts for approximately $209.5 million or about 46$132 million in direct spendin

Characterization of Hepatoma-Derived Growth Factor-Related Protein 2 Interactions with Heterochromatin

The expression of genetic information is tightly controlled by chromatin regulatory proteins, including those in the heterochromatin gene repression family. Many of these regulatory proteins work together on the chromatin substrate to precisely regulate gene expression during mammalian development, giving rise to many different tissues in higher organisms from a fixed genomic template. Here we identify and characterize the interactions of two related heterochromatin regulatory proteins, heterochromatin protein 1 alpha (HP1α) and M-phase phosphoprotein 8 (MPP8), with hepatoma-derived growth factor-related protein 2 (HRP2). We find in biochemical experiments that HRP2 copurifies and co-sediments with heterochromatin-associated proteins, including HP1α and MPP8. Using the Chromatin in vivo Assay in multiple cell types, we demonstrate that HP1α-mediated gene repression dynamics are altered by the presence of HRP2. Furthermore, the knockout of HRP2 in MDA-MB-231 cells results in significant changes to chromatin structure and stability, which alter gene expression patterns. Here, we detail a mechanism by which HRP2 contributes to epigenetic transcriptional regulation through engagement with heterochromatin-associated proteins to stabilize the chromatin landscape and influence gene expression

A questionnaire-wide association study of personality and mortality:The Vietnam Experience Study

OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and all-cause mortality in 4462 middle-aged Vietnam-era veterans.METHODS: We split the study population into half-samples. In each half, we used proportional hazards (Cox) regression to test the 550 MMPI items' associations with mortality over 15years. In all participants, we subjected significant (p<.01) items in both halves to principal-components analysis (PCA). We used Cox regression to test whether these components predicted mortality when controlling for other predictors (demographics, cognitive ability, health behaviors, and mental/physical health).RESULTS: Eighty-nine items were associated with mortality in both half-samples. PCA revealed Neuroticism/Negative Affectivity, Somatic Complaints, Psychotic/Paranoia, and Antisocial components, and a higher-order component, Personal Disturbance. Individually, Neuroticism/Negative Affectivity (HR=1.55; 95% CI=1.39, 1.72), Somatic Complaints (HR=1.66; 95% CI=1.52, 1.80), Psychotic/Paranoid (HR=1.44; 95% CI=1.32, 1.57), Antisocial (HR=1.79; 95% CI=1.59, 2.01), and Personal Disturbance (HR=1.74; 95% CI=1.58, 1.91) were associated with risk. Including covariates attenuated these associations (28.4 to 54.5%), though they were still significant. After entering Personal Disturbance into models with each component, Neuroticism/Negative Affectivity and Somatic Complaints were significant, although Neuroticism/Negative Affectivity's were now protective (HR=0.73; 95% CI=0.58, 0.92). When the four components were entered together with or without covariates, Somatic Complaints and Antisocial were significant risk factors.CONCLUSIONS: Somatic Complaints and Personal Disturbance are associated with increased mortality risk. Other components' effects varied as a function of variables in the model

In thrombin stimulated human platelets Citalopram, Promethazine, Risperidone, and Ziprasidone, but not Diazepam, may exert their pharmacological effects also through intercalation in membrane phospholipids in a receptor-independent manner

Intercalation of drugs in the platelet membrane affects phospholipid-requiring enzymatic processes according to the drugs’ intercalation capability. We investigated effects of Promethazine, Citalopram, Ziprasidone, Risperidone, and Diazepam on phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and polyphosphoinositide (PPI) metabolism in thrombin-stimulated human platelets. We also examined effects of the drugs on monolayers of glycerophospholipids using the Langmuir technique. Diazepam did not influence PLA2 activity, had no effects on PPI cycle, and caused no change in mean molecular area of phospholipid monolayers. The remaining psychotropic drugs affected these parameters in different ways and levels of potency suggesting that they act by being intercalated between the molecules of adjacent membrane phospholipids, thus causing changes in substrate availability for phospholipid-hydrolyzing enzymes (PLA2 and Phospholipase C). We show that several psychotropic drugs can also have other cellular effects than receptor antagonism. These effects may be implicated in the psychotropic effects of the drugs and/or their side effects

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29