Maine Legislature Adjourns; No Cuts to R&D; Bond Passes
At this writing, the Maine legislature adjourned last night, having completed its work for the biennium. In the final hours, the Supplemental Budget passed with major social service cuts, but minimal damage to key science and technology-related investments such as the Maine Technology Institute (MTI) and the Maine Economic Improvement Fund at the University of Maine. In addition, the legislature passed a number of bonds, including $20 million for the Maine Technology Asset Fund, a competitive program administered by MTI. If Governor LePage signs the bond bills, they will go to the voters in November.
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States Getting Smarter About Economic Incentives
Whether it's the effect of the recession, or just that legislators are starting to ask the right questions, two recent reports suggest that the long-standing economic development practice of recruiting companies from other states and localities using tax incentives (buffalo hunting to those in the biz) is getting well-deserved scrutiny.
First comes a report from the Pew Foundation entitled, "Evidence Counts: How well as states evaluating tax incentives for economic development." This report (I know you are shocked!) says, "policy makers spend billions of dollars annually on tax incentives for economic development, but no state ensures that policy makers rely on good evidence about whether these investments deliver a strong return."
Only a few weeks later, Brookings issued a report on the use of incentives in Nevada, and Jed Kolko at the Public Policy Institute for California found that no more than 2 percent of annual job gains across states nationally can be attributed to business relations anyway, while more than 95 percent come from the expansion of existing businesses or the birth of new establishments. Kenan Fikri summarized the situation in the New Republic, stating, "Reform is long overdue. Incentives are a legitimate tool for catalyzing economic development, but too often they have been irresponsibly deployed." |
Older Entrepreneurs Start Companies Too
Maybe I'm just getting older, but I was thrilled to find that Kauffman Foundation, the organization responsible for much of the country's research on entrepreneurship, has revealed that the share of entrepreneurs in the 55-64 year-old age group is up sharply over the past fifteen years. In 1996, 14.3 percent of this age group were entrepreneurs, and now (2011) it is 20.9 percent. Dane Stangler suggests that the US could be on the "cusp of an entrepreneurship boom - not in spite of an aging population but because of it." Perhaps this is because us older folks have experience, or are not ready for a traditional retirement. On the other hand, researchers are not sure if this cohort of entrepreneurs will be job-creators, because many are sole proprietors with a small number of employees.
The same Kauffman report cites the Generation Y cohort as the most entrepreneurial with 29.4 percent of entrepreneurs being between 20-34 years old. This is a generation facing an unpredictable job market, and holding different views of the traditional career ladder; starting their own company just makes sense.
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