How the States Rank in the New Economy
- 2 Comments
- November 25th, 2008
The Kauffman Foundation is out with a report that ranks the U.S. states according to how well they do in the entrepreneurial ”New Economy.”
In “The 2008 State New Economy Index” the 50 states are ranked for such things as number of knowledge workers, IT jobs, inventor patents, and venture capital investment.
It also measures some puzzling things such as number of domain names per firm (I guess they haven’t heard of domainers, who buy and sell domain names and will skew those numbers) and the euphemistically termed “online agriculture” which simply refers to the number of a state’s farmers that are online (why farmers should be singled out over any other occupation isn’t clear at all).
The 5 states that ranked top overall are:
- Massachusetts (1)
- Washington (2)
- Marlyand (3)
- Delaware (4)
- New jersey (5)
I’m not sure how useful the report is to vendors marketing to small businesses — it’s mostly a policy document. Also, the Kauffman Foundation worships high-growth companies — what they call gazelles — and has little use for small businesses.
Plus, with the economy so down, my guess is that some of those same top states will be hit hard and things could look very different next year. “High growth” and “fast growth” businesses sound all well and good, until economic conditions get rough, the venture money dries up, and those gazelles start laying off.
But for what it’s worth you can download the report here (PDF).
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That’s an interesting top 5. They are all coastal states and with the exception of Washington, I wonder if tourists have anything to do with it. If that’s the case; with less people traveling, those businesses in tourist areas will probably be hit hard.
ReplyHow about the Live Free or Die-state, New Hampshire? Is the tax level one parameter?
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