EDPro Blog: Maintained by Ed Morrison of the Center for Regional Development at Purdue University, this news and analysis site is an excellent resource for economic development professionals.

Because individual businesses and entire industries are connected in a complex web of interdependent relationships, regional planners can never afford to make decisions based solely on changes affecting a single employer or industry sector. Any changes in one will have very real ripple effects not only on suppliers but also indirectly on local businesses that depend on the spending of affected employees. How will these indirect effects be addressed by the region’s government agencies, economic development council, workforce board, and community college?

Download the full document (PDF): Practical Input-Output Modeling

International Economic Development Council: The mission of the IEDC is to promote economic development worldwide through professional development resources and public awareness.

Every region must periodically assess its most important industries in order to ensure that policy priorities are aligned with the realities and needs of the region’s economy. However, determining which regional industries are important can be challenging, since the definition of “important” is not always agreed upon by regional stakeholders. To avoid resorting to multiple surveys or word-of-mouth evidence, hard data is a necessary component of this planning process. Quantitative methods are also much faster and cheaper than qualitative methods, and also less prone to be affected by political pressures.

Read the full document (PDF): Identifying Important Regional Industries

The definition of a region is the first key step in an economic impact or economic base analysis. Which sub-areas (counties, ZIPs, or MSAs) should be included or excluded? What principles guide region definition? This short document is intended to answer these questions and help our users create regions that are appropriate for such analysis.

Download the full document (PDF): Defining a Functional Economic Region

The Northern Virgina Workforce Investment Board’s SkillSource Group, in partnership with Dr. Kenneth Poole of the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (affiliated with C2ER), has completed an 18-month BRAC impact study for the area in and around Fort Belvoir and Quantico Marine Base.

EMSI’s Strategic Advantage provided the “heavy-lifting” economic modeling, including the estimates of workforce impacts. Strategic Advantage was selected for the project after an extensive evaluation and comparison with the RIMS II model, because EMSI’s model “provided more extensive estimates of likely industry- and occupation-specific impacts.”

Read the SkillSource press release and the C2ER newsletter article.

Fast Company recently highlighted Southwest Michigan First, an economic development group out of Kalamazoo Michigan that was included in this year’s Fast 50 lineup.

They are acknowledged in this article for their innovative response to Pfizer closing down their local R & D branch in 2003. Fearing scientists would leave the area without job opportunities, they managed to raise $50 million (an impressive amount for a town of its size) to start a for-profit venture fund to support life-science startups. Two weeks after the announced layoffs, the group opened a business incubator that within three months was home to 15 new life-science companies. Four of them are graduating from the incubator this year and moving into bigger offices. One has already made breakthroughs in cancer research.

A new resource guide published by the State Science and Technology Institute for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration highlights three elements essential to the formation of a tech-based economy: intellectual infrastructure, capital, and entrepreneurial culture.

The document is intended for economic development practitioners working with regions to transition to technology based economies.

Purdue Center for Regional Development, Indiana Business Research Center and Strategic Development Group Inc. published Unlocking Rural Competitiveness; The Role of Regional Clusters in January 2007.

This is a great resource for anyone trying to define a regional cluster. Appendix I of the report gives a detailed taxonomy of 17 industry clusters.

The University of Minnesota has compiled ten principles of economic development through their State and Local Policy Program. Their introduction states,

“Economic Development is a concept whose definition often depends on who is doing the talking. Economists, elected officials, development professionals and citizens are all likely to have varying perspectives on the subject.

The basic framework begins with the assumption that the object of development is to create wealth, whether on a national, regional or local level. However, it is here that the many perspectives diverge. As a backgrounder, the SLPP presents ‘Ten Principles in Economic Development’.”