jobs and employment	209
economics	165
education	127
economic development	125
taxes	118
finance	103
recession	94
state and local government	83
unemployment and the labor market	81
budget and spending	79

CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2004

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January 2, 2004	Can We Afford Safe Food? "... the cost of actually achieving the absolute goals we so casually throw about is unacceptably high."
January 9, 2004	The Mystery of Declining Savings "As late as 1984, Americans saved more than 10 cents out of every dollar they cleared after taxes."
January 16, 2004	The Indiana Economy at Year's End " ... in Indiana in 2003 manufacturing was hardly the only sector in the red."
January 23, 2004	Where Should Our Leaders Take Us? " ... the economy has been transforming before our eyes, from mass production to what might be called mass specialization."
January 30, 2004	Getting to Know Indiana 's Labor Force "Outside of Indianapolis , we have retained an emphasis on production-related activities in our state that was shed by the rest of the country years ago.
February 6, 2004	The U.S. Economy is Working Smarter "Economists have always pointed to productivity improvements as the key to our competitiveness and prosperity."
February 13, 2004	Baby Steps Towards Tax Reform " ... in battles over tax policy, political considerations will have always won out over the trifling objections of economists."
February 20, 2004	New Data Put State Economy in Better Light " ... the job data say that the recession-related job declines essentially stopped in the spring of 2002, or more than twelve months earlier than previously published."
February 27, 2004	The Paradox of Politics "Successful politicians have long ago learned that some messages are best not delivered to the electorate."
March 5, 2004	Another Warning on Social Security "Call it tough love, or call it protecting Social Security, but something must be done now to throttle back benefit growth to get this problem down to a more manageable size."
March 12, 2004	Revising Indiana's Job Loss Ranking "Revising the employment numbers didn’t pull silk out of a sow’s ear, to be sure, but it erased a bit of the shame we endured last year."
March 19, 2004	Where Are the Jobs? "...blaming corporations or foreign trade for destroying jobs is like blaming rain and sunshine for destroying crops"
March 26, 2004	Indiana’s Regions Are a Study in Contrasts "The degree to which the workforce in the 11 economic regions outside Indianapolis are concentrated in production-related occupations that do not require advanced educational credentials is stunning."
April 2, 2004	Counting Jobs Not as Simple as It Sounds "Rising self-employment, plus gains in new business startups that can elude and survey of existing businesses, have thrown a monkey wrench into the simple idea of using payrolls to count jobs."
April 9, 2004	Understanding the Budget Plight of States "There is an imbalance between revenue growth and expenditure growth that is not related to the state of the economy, and that faster economic growth will not cure. And what will cure it is not popular."
April 16, 2004	A Nation of Busybodies "Health care has become such a significant cost to businesses that differences in risk factors across cities and states can show up on the bottom line."
April 23, 2004	The Business Cycle Turns Up for Indiana "It has been a good first quarter for job growth in the Indiana economy."
April 30, 2004	The Untapped Potential of Public Sector Innovation "The forces of competition that prod organizations to innovate and modernize in order to survive aren’t the same in the public sector."
May 7, 2004	GDP is Nice, but Job Growth is Better "There was good news on just about every page of the April jobs report."
May 14, 2004	The Challenge for Growth in Indiana "We remain a production oriented state with a less skilled, less educated, and less well paid work force in an economy that continues to grow in a different direction."
May 21, 2004	The Challenge for Growth in Indiana, Part II "... how could we go about changing the Indiana economy so we can start climbing, instead of falling, in the rankings of economic performance and prosperity?."
May 28, 2004	Are We Missing the Obvious? "... the recovery in the U.S. economy is obvious to those of us who make a daily diet of the statistics which detail its performance."
June 4, 2004	What's Really Behind Stronger Job Growth "... to say that it has been the President’s leadership that has created almost 1.4 million jobs in the U.S. economy since last September, or destroyed 2.7 million jobs in the two years prior to that point, is nonsense."
June 11, 2004	Can We Afford to Buy New Jobs? "There isn’t enough money in the public till to simply pay companies to create jobs where we want them."
June 18, 2004	Industrial Economy on a Roll "The down and up cycle of the manufacturing economy nationwide since 2000 fits Indiana’s recession experience like a glove, with good reason."
June 25, 2004	Education and the Indiana Workforce "When it comes to job growth and earnings growth in the national economy, the biggest strides have been made in white collar occupations where college degrees are required."
July 2, 2004	Tracing Our Economic Evolution "As economists and statisticians track the size of the overall economic pie, they overlook the sometimes widely fluctuating fortunes of the individuals and households within it."
July 9, 2004	Is Indiana’s Tax System Working? "Unfortunately, Indiana is likely to be in even worse shape to adequately handle a dip in the economy in the future than it is today, for at least three reasons."
July 16, 2004	Indiana Economy at Mid Year "This rebound doesn’t solve all the state’s problems, but it certainly eases some of them. "
July 23, 2004	A Closer Look at Manufacturing "... manufacturing industries have not been a contributor to employment growth in more than a generation."
July 30, 2004	GDP Growth Comes Down to Earth "The anemic 1.0 percent rise in consumer spending during the April – June period was the worst single quarter performance since the onset of the recession."
August 6, 2004	Small Business and Economic Growth "Higher rates of job destruction – matched by high rates of job creation – are consistently associated with faster economic growth."
August 13, 2004	Rooting for the Economy "A changeover in the party in power brings the possibility for reverses or reforms, depending on your point of view, that can have direct impacts for long-term investments."
August 20, 2004	Talking Back to Your Television "We’ve evolved over the last two decades into an economy that is increasingly focused on the delivery of services instead of goods"
August 27, 2004	Let the Next Generation Pay Our Bills "Even though the first ten months of this fiscal year have seen a 4 percent increase in revenues, signaling a clear end to the recession’s impact, the federal deficit has continued to widen."
September 3, 2004	Best Practices for Economic Development "What communities do to attract specific companies to locate within their borders can do more harm than the good things spawned by the new investment."
September 10, 2004	Placing Bets on Our Economic Future "... we need to focus on increasing investment by companies that do business with the world outside our community’s borders."
September 17, 2004	Plugging Into the Growth of China "China’s emergence as a world manufacturing center has presented a formidable challenge to other production-oriented economies, including the economy of Indiana."
September 24, 2004	The Myth of Manufacturing Jobs "We have been accustomed to think of manufacturing as the driver of wealth creation in our communities and regions for so long that it is hard to think of anything else taking its place."
October 1, 2004	Is the Tide Rising Enough for Indiana’s Boat? "The Midwest, along with New England, enjoys the dubious distinction of dragging the tail on the horse riding to recovery."
October 8, 2004	Sizing Up the Labor Market "For those hoping for a quick rebound from the soft consumer spending levels of recent months, the September jobs report is a big disappointment."
October 15, 2004	Data and Quasi-Data "If research does not adequately distinguish between what we know, and what we don’t know, then it can fail us when we need it."
October 22, 2004	Why High Costs Don’t Matter "Boasting about costs to companies with specialized needs becomes a waste of time."
October 29, 2004	A Surprisingly Good Quarter "The third quarter GDP report solidifies the view that the U.S. economy is still successfully managing the challenges of its post-recession recovery."
November 5, 2004	Indiana Manufacturing in Perspective "Is the Indiana manufacturing economy in decline? That depends on how you keep score."
November 12, 2004	Deficits Forever? "The foreign investors who help make our economy run – to tune of about $3 billion a day, when trade deficits are included – are increasingly less interested in holding a currency whose fiscal house is in such disorder."
November 19, 2004	Growing in the Right Direction "... you’d be hard pressed to come up with a better setting for recovery in the Indiana economy than what is unfolding in the national economy at this very moment."
November 26, 2004	Do the Colts Add to the Economy? "The idea that spending by local residents on anything – gambling in casinos, buying cars, or attending sports events – can propel the overall economy to greater heights is something we should all be deeply skeptical of."
December 3, 2004	The Devilish Details of Revenue Forecasting "... over the last eight years, the share of total income going to households and individuals has been on a virtual roller coaster ride, taking a lot of forecasters for a ride in the process."
December 10, 2004	Reversing the Exodus of Corporate Headquarters "The reason why Indiana has so few headquarters today is that we aren’t planting enough seeds – in the formation of new companies – for the future."
December 17, 2004	Saving for a Rainy Day "... from the individual consumer’s point of view, there really aren’t a lot of good reasons to save right now."
December 24, 2004	Evaluating the Price Environment "The prices of raw materials like energy, cement, metals, and wood products have risen significantly in the last twelve months."
December 31, 2004	Getting in Touch With Our Economic Feelings "Whether it was the Iraq war, the drumbeat of news of weak job growth, or the presidential campaign, people consistently told surveys they felt worse about the economy than their own spending would indicate."

Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University

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CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2004