In 2013–14, Harvard Business School (HBS) conducted its third alumni survey on U.S. competitiveness. Our report on the findings focuses on a troubling divergence in the American economy: large and midsize firms have rallied strongly from the Great Recession, and highly skilled individuals are prospering. But middle and working-class citizens are struggling, as are small businesses. We argue that such a divergence is unsustainable, explore its root causes, and examine actions that might mitigate it. We ask in particular, how can we create a U.S.

The ability of small businesses to drive innovation is critical to U.S. competitiveness. In recognition of the invaluable role small businesses play in the United States innovation ecosystem, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) launched the Regional Innovation Cluster (RIC) Initiative in September 2010. This initiative promotes and supports industry clusters—geographically concentrated groups of interconnected businesses, suppliers, service providers, and related institutions in a particular industry or field—that have been associated with increased regional economic growth.

Small businesses are core to America’s economic competitiveness. Not only do they employ half of the nation’s private sector workforce – about 120 million people – but since 1995 they have created approximately two‐thirds of the net new jobs in our country. Yet in recent years, small businesses have been slow to recover from a recession and credit crisis that hit them especially hard. This lag has prompted the question, “Is there a credit gap in small business lending?”  

The California Employment Development Department's Labor Market Information Division has produced a series of products titled "Regional Economic Analysis Profiles" to help target clusters for investment in the fields of workforce development, economic development, and education in California. The purpose of this report is to help align the state’s workforce institutions and programs around the needs of regional industry clusters.

The analysis presented in this Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) provides a detailed profile of Lander County, including the two primary urban areas of Battle Mountain and the Austin/Kingston area, in the current time frame, primarily from 2000 and 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data, as background to the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis.  In addition to U.S. Census Bureau data, data from various state and other federal sources were used and incorporated into the demographic and economic analysis of Lander County.

In works such as Glaeser (2011) and Porter (1995), prominent economists have suggested that metropolitan areas are the key to economic growth. In this article, we examine the economic development strategies and performance of the largest metropolitan areas in the five states of the Seventh Federal Reserve District—Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The cities, from smallest to largest by metro population, are: Des Moines, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago.

A growing number of states are recognizing the importance of evaluating their economic development tax incentives. For example, lawmakers in Indiana, Mississippi, and Rhode Island have recently enacted legislation to ensure their states take three key steps to regularly review and analyze these programs.

This paper advances the understanding of foreign direct investment (FDI)—that is to say, the U.S operations of foreign companies—in U.S. metro areas in three ways. First, it provides a framing of what FDI is and why it matters for the United States and its regions. Then it presents new data on jobs in foreign-owned establishments (FOEs) across the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas between 1991 and 2011. It concludes with a discussion of what policymakers and practitioners can do to maximize the amount, quality, and economic benefits of FDI into the United States.

Benchmarking the Rhode Island Knowledge Economy is a compilation of twenty-three different indicators measuring Rhode Island’s capacity and progress toward competing in a knowledge-driven and science and technology based economy. The indicators are organized into four categories representing key components of a knowledge-based economy: Rhode Island’s Knowledge Economy, The Knowledge Business Pipeline, Research and Development, and The Workforce for the Knowledge Economy.

The Kennebec Valley Economic Development District 's Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) covering the five year period from 2013 through 2017 incorporates the region’s vision for a robust economy. For the first time the CEDS adopts an asset-based strategy to promote economic growth, to expand prosperity, and to foster both a resilient and sustainable regional economy. It incorporates the goals and performance benchmarks established by the Leadership Team of the Mobilize Maine/Kennebec Valley program in 2012.