Written by: Steve Melito, Industry Blog Writer for FuzeHub
Image Credit: University of Nebraska – Lincoln
What’s the best way to measure the strength of a state’s economy? Job growth and unemployment rates are common metrics, but researchers at the University of Nebraska’s Lincoln Bureau of Business Research emphasize the importance of “core measures” such as entrepreneurship, technical innovation, and business formation rates. For Dr. Eric Thompson and Dr. William Walstad then, their State Entrepreneurship Index provides a comprehensive way to measure and compare the economic performance of all 50 states.
For the second year in row, the Nebraska researchers have ranked New York State third in the nation on the State Entrepreneurship Index. North Dakota, the highest ranked state, largely owes it stature to the oil and gas boom in the Baaken formation. California, which holds the second spot, ranks highly in patents per thousand residents, due in part to the success of Silicon Valley. By contrast, New York State ranked above the median average for 4 of the 5 components on which the State Entrepreneurship Index is based.
According to Drs. Thompson and Waldstad, these five components are: percent growth in employer establishments, percent growth in employer establishments per person, business formation rate, patents per thousand persons, and average income per non-farm proprietor. Manufacturing metrics are absent from their calculations, however, and many of the leading states in the study have not experienced significant changes in rank over several years.
Given that New York fares well across 80% of the study’s components, does this mean that the Empire State has a better-balanced economy than either North Dakota or California – states that are strongest in a more limited number of areas? If manufacturing metrics were included in the Entrepreneurship Index, would New York State capture the first or second position in this study?
Read Original Story: New York among U.S. leaders in entrepreneurship
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