Category Archives: Maine

In Maine, Coincident Index slows, but job growth remains strong

From the Philadelphia Fed: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released the coincident indexes for the 50 states for September 2014. In the past month, the indexes increased in 43 states, decreased in four, and remained stable in three, for a one-month diffusion index of 78. Over the past three months, the indexes increased in […]

Business-targeted tax cuts do not improve state economies

FROM a London School of Economics and Political Science paper by Soledad Artiz Prillaman and Kenneth J Meier (my emphasis): Studying the 50 U.S. states over the past four decades, we find that tax incentives to businesses prove unhelpful in stimulating economic growth and may even be harmful to state economies. Over the past 30 […]

Infrastructure Spending and Tax Incentives

FROM a recent Bloomberg article on the issue of infrastructure spending: Last week, Larry Summers repeated his plea for the U.S. to invest more in its crumbling infrastructure. He—and the latest World Economic Outlook (PDF) from the International Monetary Fund—are imploring governments to issue additional debt to finance roads, bridges, water treatment, and extension of power grids. Even the […]

Do Colleges and Universities Increase Their Region’s Human Capital?

TO follow up two previous posts regarding job growth and educational attainment.  Succinctly, increasing the educational attainment of a workforce alone will not boost job growth unless there is adequate demand for labor is there.  To reinforce that, the following is the abstract from a 2011 paper authored by Jaison Abel and Richard Deitz (my emphasis): […]

Advanced Degrees and Job Growth

THERE’S been some discussion in Maine about the need to increase educational attainment of the state’s workforce to boost job growth.  While such discussions garner support, and the notion that Maine’s job growth would accelerate with a more educated workforce, there are some questions about the efficacy of education as an engine for economic growth. […]

What’s not surprising about the Unemployment Rate

IN doing some research for my piece on the weaknesses masked by Maine’s unemployment rate (UER), I noticed two interesting things about the UER.  These two things should be kept in mind during the current campaign season. The state’s economy is certainly one of the central issues in the campaign season, and with that candidates […]

Greater Portland leads Maine’s metro areas in job growth

ACCORDING to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford area was the only metro area to outpace the state in job growth over the past year. From the report: Unemployment rates were lower in August than a year earlier in 322 of the 373 metropolitan areas, higher in 44 […]

The (false) promise for jobs

FROM an op-ed titled A promise to grow jobs, shrink government that no Maine politician is making, authored by Allison Mitchell and published in this morning’s BDN: In just a month, America votes. Here in Maine, I’ll be looking for candidates smart and bold enough to call for investment in Maine’s future. As a parent, […]

Maine’s personal income growth for second quarter on par with New England, Nation

THE Bureau of Economic Analysis released State Quarterly Personal Income figures for the second quarter of this year.  Maine’s personal income grew from the first quarter to the second of this year by 1.5%, with net earnings* (0.8 percentage points), dividends, interest, and rents (0.3 pp), and transfer receipts** (0.4 pp) making up that increase. […]