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Six Drivers of Economic Growth
The National Governors Association new report, Growing State Economies: A Policy Framework, lays out six drivers of growth, and suggests that while "each state must decide on its tax, spending and regulatory policies," these activities can be refined to improve job creation. The six are:
- Entrepreneurs, the individuals who seed, grow and renew businesses;
- Education and skills, the concentration of highly educated, highly skilled individuals within economies;
- Innovation and technology, the new ideas that enter an economy;
- Private capital, debt and equity at all stages of company formation;
- Global markets and linkages; and
- Industry clusters, that experience higher growth rates than firms not embedded in these networks of institutions that provide education, training finance and marketing.
The Framework is available here.
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Another Negative Evaluation of Film Tax Credit
The Louisiana Budget Project has concluded that the state's film tax credit takes more out of state coffers than it brings in. In 2011, the Louisiana Department of Economic Development distributed $231 million in credits. About 2,510 people in Louisiana worked in film production last year. Supporters note that Louisiana is now #3 in the country in film production activity. Film tax credits are often criticized because of the transient nature of the activity they support and the proportion of expenditures that leave the state granting the credit.
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R U Happy?
The good folks at the New Economics Foundation have decided that we need new measure of progress. So they created the Happy Planet Index. This is as the product of well-being and life expectancy divided by ecological footprint. According to this measure, no country is achieving high and sustainable well-being and the US is in 105th position out of 151 countries. Ecological footprints bring down the scores of high-income countries substantially. Read more here.
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R U Happy 2?
A recent study at the Harvard Business School showed a dramatic correlation between the levels of employee engagement and the overall effectiveness of their supervisors. The engagement of employees with the worst bosses was exceptionally low, while the best leaders had the happiest, most engaged and committed employees. Another study found that 60 percent of the employees working for the US federal government are miserable - not because of pay or benefits, but because they have bad bosses. So, no offense to any past bosses I've had, just saying....
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How Many Lobsters Does It Take to Power a Lightbulb?
Researchers at Clarkson University, Case Western Reserve and Joseph Fourier (in France) have discovered how to harvest electricity from live organisms. Lobsters, it turns out, have an output of 12 microwatts, about 1/3 the voltage of a AAA battery. Given the price of lobsters this summer, compared to oil, this might be a cost-effective idea! What will the folks at PETA say? You can see an amazingly disturbing video here at Dr. Evgeny Katz's website.
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Impacts Starting to be Felt from Patent Law Changes
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has begun publishing the rules that will implement the sweeping changes to the patent system due to the new America Invents Act passed last year. The biggest change is the switch to first-inventor-to-file system of granting patents that begins next March. However, another big change is that the way patents can be challenged has been made substantially less costly. Experts are now weighing in, suggesting that patents will be weaker because they can be challenged more easily. And, everyone agrees that it's now more important than ever to file a provisional patent soon after documenting an invention.
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New Fuel Efficiency Standards Expected to Create Jobs
Last week, the Obama Administration announced new fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles. The BlueGreen Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council have calculated the economic impact of these new rules on the states. Their analysis is based on an Input-Output model that looks at the impact of the savings that drivers will realize on transportation fuel. For Maine, the impacts are calculated to be: 2,800 jobs created, 95 millions gallons of fuel saved equating to $415 million, and 1,120,000 metric tons of CO2 reduction. Read more here.
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