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Begin New Search Topic Development Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution The Brookings Institution

71. Making Sense of Clusters: Regional Competitiveness and Economic Development

Author:
Joseph Cortright
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In recent years, "cluster strategies" have become a popular economic development approach among state and local policymakers and economic development practitioners. An industry cluster is a group of firms, and related economic actors and institutions, that are located near one another and that draw productive advantage from their mutual proximity and connections. Cluster analysis can help diagnose a region's economic strengths and challenges and identify realistic ways to shape the region's economic future. Yet many policymakers and practitioners have only a limited understanding of what clusters are and how to build economic development strategies around them.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
United States

72. Diversity Spreads Out: Metropolitan Shifts in Hispanic, Asian, and Black Populations Since 2000

Author:
William H. Frey
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The idea of America as an ethnic “melting pot” gained currency at the turn of the 20th century, amid an unprecedented wave of European immigrants to the United States. At the turn of the 21st century, the melting pot ideal persists, but encompasses a more racially and ethnically diverse group of Americans, both native and foreign born. In particular, the higher growth rates of the nation's minority populations versus its white population animate this distinctly American concept.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, Development, and Migration
Political Geography:
New York, Asia, California, Chicago, and Phoenix

73. One-Fifth of the Nation: America's First Suburbs

Author:
David Warren and Robert Puentes
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
One of the more encouraging metropolitan policy trends over the last several years is the increased attention on America's older, inner-ring, “first” suburbs. Beginning generally with Myron Orfield's Metropolitics in 1997, a slow but steady stream of research has started to shine a bright light on these places and begun to establish the notion that first suburbs have their own unique set of characteristics and challenges that set them apart from the rest of metropolitan America. Since then first suburbs in a few regions have assumed a small, but significant, role in advancing research and policy discussions about metropolitan growth and development.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Migration
Political Geography:
United States and America

74. The New Safety Net: How the Tax Code Helped Low-Income Working Families During the Early 2000s

Author:
Alan Berube
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The early years of the twenty- first century marked a period of change in both the labor market and in public policy for the nation's low-income working families. Most prominently, employment conditions deteriorated after 2000. The nation's unemployment rate climbed from 4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent in 2003. The unemployment rate for workers with less than a high school education rose to nearly 9 percent in 2003. Real hourly wages continued to increase slightly for most workers during this period, but the weak labor market reduced the number of hours worked, along with overall earnings and family incomes. The steady rise in labor force participation among low-income families during the 1990s, spurred in part by the 1996 welfare reform law and other policies to “make work pay,” gave way to a decline after 2000.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Government, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
New York

75. The Earned Income Tax Credit at Age 30: What We Know

Author:
Steve Holt
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the nation's largest antipoverty program for working families, plays an important role in the economic life of America's low- income households and communities. It increases the ability of workers in lower paying jobs to support themselves and their families. It represents a large inflow of resources into local economies. It magnifies the importance of the annual tax filing process. The federal EITC turned 30 years old in 2005. During the past 20 years, many states and localities have enacted versions of the federal credit to benefit their own residents. Meanwhile, a new generation of local leaders has emerged to publicize the availability of the EITC and related tax credits for lower-income families and neighborhoods, and to argue for progressive federal tax policies.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
America

76. Firm Sizes: Facts, Formulae and Fantasies

Author:
Robert L. Axtell
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Recently discovered facts concerning the size distribution of U.S. firms are recapitulated—in short, these sizes are closely approximated by the Zipf distribution, a Pareto (power law) distribution with exponent of unity. Interesting consequences of this result are then developed, having primarily to do with formulae for the distribution's moments, and difficulties of reasonably characterizing a 'typical' firm. Then, a leading candidate explanation for these data—the Kesten random growth process—is assessed in terms of its realism vis-á-vis actual firm growth. Insofar as it has fluctuations that are quite different in character from actual firm size variability, the Kesten and related stochastic growth processes qualify more as fables of firm growth than as credible explanations. Finally, new explanations of the facts are proposed by considering firms to be partitions of the set of all workers. Assuming all partitions to be equally likely, the observed distribution of firm sizes is hypothesized to be the distribution of block sizes in the most likely partitions. An alternative derivation of this distribution as a constrained optimization problem is also described. Given that these calculations involve unimaginably vast magnitudes, it seems just short of fantastic to consider them relevant empirically.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
United States

77. Central Asia Human Development Report

Author:
Johannes F. Linn
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Increased cooperation among the Central Asian republics stands to produce big gains for the people of the region. The benefits from reducing trade costs, increasing remittances from migrant workers, and more efficient use of water and energy resources could generate a regional economy twice as large and well off 10 years from now. The price of non-cooperation could also be large, a heavy toll extracted from the spread of disease, lost economic opportunities, natural disasters and environmental destruction, as well as conflict and insecurity. Both costs and benefits will be felt most among the region's poorer populations.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Central Asia

78. Higher Education in Pennsylvania: A Competitive Asset for Communities

Author:
Jennifer S. Vey
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
In 2003, the Brookings Institution released a report on how to enhance Pennsylvania's economic competitiveness. “Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania” called for the state to rejuvenate its many distinctive cities, towns, and older suburbs and to invest in the high quality service industries often located there. The Commonwealth's institutions of higher learning are among those industries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Education, and Government
Political Geography:
Pennsylvania

79. The Spread of Innovations through Social Learning

Author:
H. Peyton Young
Publication Date:
12-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Innovations often spread by the communication of information among potential adopters. In the marketing literature, the standard model of new product diffusion is generated by information contagion: agents adopt once they hear about the existence of the product from someone else. In social learning models, by contrast, an agent adopts only when the perceived advantage of the innovation--”as revealed by the actions and experience of prior adopters--”exceeds a threshold determined by the agent's prior beliefs. We demonstrate that learning with heterogeneous priors generates adoption curves that have an analytically tractable, closed-form solution. Moreover there is a simple statistical test that discriminates between this type of process and a contagion model. Applied to Griliches' classic results on the adoption of hybrid corn, this test shows that learning with heterogeneous priors does a considerably better job of explaining the data than does the contagion model.
Topic:
Civil Society, Demographics, Development, and Education

80. A New Federal Contribution to the District of Columbia? The Need, Likely Impact, and Some Options

Author:
Ed Lazere and David Garrison
Publication Date:
11-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
A 2003 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the District of Columbia faces a large structural budget imbalance—that is, a persistent gap between its ability to raise revenues and the cost of providing basic services. DC's imbalance stems largely from its being a "city without a state" and from revenue limitations caused by the federal presence. The most logical solution to this problem would be an annual contribution from the federal government to help address the challenges that arise from DC's unique status as the nation's capital.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Colombia