jobs and employment	261
economics	201
state and local government	188
education	186
economic development	171
indiana	171
budget and spending	145
taxes	144
law and public policy	142
workforce and human capital	139

CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2006

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January 6, 2006	Aligning Workforce and Economic Development"... the labor demands of the production side of the economy have shrunk to the point where the industrial sector simply can’t anchor the economic base the way it once did."
January 13, 2006	Sobering Up the Drunken Sailor"Consumers are sitting on a lot of housing wealth these days, and thanks to innovations in the lending industry, they’ve got plenty of ways to tap into it."
January 20, 2006	How We Handle Failure Matters"The nice thing about failure, if there is anything nice about it, is that it provides you with good information."
January 27, 2006	U.S. Economy Hits a Speed Bump"...what’s troubling about the most recent GDP report is that the more closely you examine it, the worse it looks for our state."
February 3, 2006	Let the Private Sector Operate the Toll Road" It’s not about ideology, it’s about performance."
February 10, 2006	We Avoid Complex Issues at Our Risk " We’re kicking plenty of cans down the road these days, waiting for painless solutions to present themselves, which, of course, they never do."
February 20, 2006	Services Jobs Come to Muncie " Those who anticipate working in an environment where tasks and hours are standardized, with flat rate compensation, and where raises and promotions accrue with seniority may be in for surprise. "
February 27, 2006	Popping the Housing Bubble Myth "...there are some eye-popping statistics still rolling out of real estate markets these days."
March 6, 2006	What It Takes to Recruit Talent "What do prospects see when they evaluate your community against the competition?"
March 13, 2006	What’s Next for Auto Industry Jobs"Despite the rhetoric of workers and executives, salvation is not one “hot” selling product away."
March 20, 2006	Indiana Employment Report Card Arrives "...like wine, we should let the data on state and metro area job growth age a bit before we act on what it tells us."
March 27, 2006	Consumer Driven Health Care is Coming"The only way you, the consumer, can be said to be truly in charge of your health care spending is to spend your own money."
April 3, 2006	Getting Realistic About Deficits "The fixes will involve more taxes and less spending"
April 10, 2006	Understanding Urban Growth"The health of the body is what’s important, not the health of the separate limbs."
April 17, 2006	What Does a Diversified Economy Look Like? " There will likely be no large new employers coming to every town, gobbling up workers by the hundreds or thousands, offering lifetime employment for generations the way manufacturing companies once did."
April 24, 2006	An Early Read on the State Economy in 2006 "A solid appraisal of state job growth involves more than just picking a couple of monthly employment numbers out of a hat."
May 1, 2006	Getting Started on a New Indiana Economy "The state doesn’t have billions sitting in a bank account ready to be invested in plants and facilities to put Hoosiers to work in high paying jobs"
May 8, 2006	Solving the Mysteries of Gasoline Prices "Because geography is involved, information on prices tends to be imperfect.
May 15, 2006	Re-Inventing Government "Economic development in particular has been hamstrung by the disconnectedness between silos of government."
May 22, 2006	Connecting to Chicago "...we’re all part of the upper Midwest, and the center of gravity in our part of the universe is on the shores of Lake Michigan in northeastern Illinois."
May 29, 2006	Wanted: A Larger Perspective on Public Policy Issues "Compared to almost any other major city, real estate in Indianapolis is an underperforming asset, as it is in many other Indiana communities."
June 5, 2006	Beware the Battles of Health Care Giants "Consumers are like those terrorized Tokyo bystanders in the 1950’s movies – fearful because no matter which monster wins, there will still be a monster on the loose."
June 12, 2006	Motor Vehicle Jobs: Past or Future? "Can Indiana swim against the tide and gain motor vehicle parts and assembly jobs in the coming years?"
June 19, 2006	The Shifting Sands of Employment Data "The “facts” on job growth are something we can never exactly know, although we’d expect a well designed survey to come acceptably close."
June 26, 2006	Affordable Universal Health Care is Not Affordable "As a sustainable mechanism for financing the delivery of health care to seniors, Medicare as it stands today can only be called a colossal failure."
July 3, 2006	Paying for Roads "...rather than raise taxes to what it would take, state politicians have unsurprisingly taken the penny-wise, pound-foolish approach of skimping on infrastructure support."
July 10, 2006	Tinkering With Property Taxes From Afar "Making local tax rates more responsive to the wishes of the locals who pay them, rather than the whims of a legislature sitting in Indianapolis, is what really needs fixing."
July 17, 2006	Old Versus New in Telecommunications Reform "...many generations of Hoosiers, like others throughout the nation, have lived knowing only the world of regulated phone service, where commissions hold hearings for public comment on rate increases and the chaos of competition is far away."
July 24, 2006	Education Really Does Matter "...technological change in the U.S. economy has increased the appetite of employers for more educated workers faster than the nation’s colleges and universities have been able to produce them."
July 31, 2006	The Truth About Small Business "About 53 percent of net job growth in the last decade has come from businesses with more than 100 employees."
August 7, 2006	Transition in Growth for the U.S. Economy "The best news for Indiana has been the surprising, sustained strength of the industrial sector."
August 14, 2006	Democracy in Action "...there have been too many brilliant political ideas in our legislatures over the last few years, particularly at the federal level where the balanced budget mandate is absent."
August 21, 2006	Understanding Low Wages "In an era when advanced educational credentials are a requirement to even be considered for many careers, we hear the shocking news that as many as one in four ninth graders in high school will not graduate with their class."
August 28, 2006	Job Growth in the News "...the evidence that overall growth has cooled in the last twelve months is becoming persuasive.
September 4, 2006	A Bounce Back in Our Spending Appetites "...the list of projects and needs in search of new state dollars is a daunting one."
September 11, 2006	Productivity is Great, But What Is It? "It’s hard to find a workplace that the information revolution hasn’t touched in some significant way."
September 18, 2006	Does the Economy Care Who Wins in November? "We’ve had inflation under Republican and Democratic administrations alike."
September 25, 2006	Getting Realistic About Federal Deficits "Not only have CBO projections of deficits proved wildly inaccurate in the past, but in this instance they include assumptions about future spending and revenues that almost all agree are unrealistic."
October 2, 2006	High Taxes: Compared to What? "Indiana is not a high tax state by any stretch of the imagination."
October 9, 2006	What Keeps Bad Economic Ideas Alive?"But examples of foolish economic notions supported by public rhetoric, if not legislation, are depressingly common."
October 16, 2006	Sunset in the Era of U.S. Economic Dominance "We were born into a world of American economic dominance, and the sweet spot for U.S. manufacturing, in particular."
October 23, 2006	Talent Does Not Come Cheap "...realizing our goals for growth in life sciences or any other knowledge-based sector may prove difficult without a bigger commitment to attracting and paying talent."
October 30, 2006	Housing and the Economy: What Me Worry? "Interest rate hikes and housing price declines are a double whammy to those who were unable to resist the lure of quick profits that has given us “Flip this House” television shows ..."
November 6, 2006	Evaluating the IEDC "...if in fact the organizational structure of the IEDC is a superior way to conduct the economic development business of state government, it should survive long enough to get the job done,"
November 13, 2006	Look Early to Solve the Technology Deficit "The technological dominance that many of us take as a birthright has begun to erode at an astonishing rate."
November 20, 2006	Connecting to Commerce "But roads are more than a response to growth – they can be a tremendous catalyst for growth as well."
November 27, 2006	Chinese Growth Falling Back to Earth? "...the story of growth in the world’s most populous country is really the tale of two economies."
December 4, 2006	It’s All in the Language "Those who have been associated with government know that words used inside chambers don’t always have the same meaning as they do in the outside world."
December 11, 2006	Researching Riddles from the Labor Market "...even some of the most basic research on the economy, such as recording, tabulating, and tracking jobs, reveals some surprisingly deep insights."
December 18, 2006	The Enigma of Indiana Manufacturing"...the rules that once governed success are changing, and companies have no choice but to change with them.."
December 25, 2006	Changes Afoot in Corporate America "... it is the unintended consequences of laws and regulations aimed at controlling the perceived excesses of corporations that have often had the most lasting impact."

Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University

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CBER Weekly Commentaries - 2006