In recent years virtually all of the states have begun efforts to promote international business. They engage in a wide range of activities at home and abroad to increase state exports and to lure foreign direct investors to their states. It is somewhat surprising that only a modest amount of...

Using original data for a Midwestern city, the dynamics of job generation through new office building construction are examined in this article. A limited number of new business openings were associated with the construction of four new office buildings, either new businesses located in the new...

The concept of the dependency rate (DR), introduced in this article, is used to analyze aggregate economic dependence in the states, using annual data for 1985. The DR is a measure of the portion of a state population that is supported, directly or indirectly, by its working population. The DR...

This article examines the Reagan Administration proposal to improve the competitiveness of domestic industries in world markets by altering current United States antitrust laws. We argue that the proposal harms efforts to enforce meaningful antitrust statutes while simultaneously bringing no...

Three of the most prominent annual state business climate rankings (Grant-Thornton, Inc. magazine, and Corporation for Enterprise Development) are described with careful attention paid to the elements that go into the rankings and their weights. Then rankings from the 1981 Grant Thornton and...

Economic development practitioners face an uncertain environment in which their ability to bring about economic development is dependent upon factors over which they have little, if any, control. Using extended excerpts from open-ended interviews, the author explores how the economic development...

Various theoretical beliefs about high-technology industry's performance during recession are reviewed. The relative employment performances of matched pairs of U. S. high-tech and non-high-tech counties during the 1980-1982 recession are analyzed. High-tech counties, as a group, are found to...

In the late 1970s, state governments began adopting "high-tech" policies designed to promote economic development through support of research and technological innovation. This paper first examines the trend of increased activism of state government and the historical precedent of state action...

A declining manufacturing base in many regions, fueled by plant closures and work force reductions, has hurt many small companies that historically have operated as suppliers to the larger companies. This article examines the experience of smaller manufacturing companies in adjusting to new...

Perceiving all of the world's economies as pursuing each other up an industrial staircase allows foresight into which industries in which nations are most likely to face increasing competition from those seeking a breakthrough in the race for world markets. The U.S. steel industry illustrates...