SSTI Digest

James DeLong is the new vice president of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.

William Even was named South Dakota's new economic development director.

The National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices has named Chris Hayter as its program director for economic development, a newly created position. Hayter joins NGA from the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing.

Bill Johnson, formerly the director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, left his position to become the grassroots coordinator of Gov. Bob Riley's re-election campaign. Doni Ingram, who was the agency's assistant director, is now acting director.

Rob Monsees left his position as Gov. Matt Blunt's deputy chief of staff-policy to become the executive director of the Missouri Technology Corporation.

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay's Paper Technology Transfer Center has changed its name to the Paper Industry Resource Center.

The Center for Applied Innovation, a Chicago-based think tank, appointed Michael Patin as its new executive director.

Supporters of NIST's Advanced Technology Program (ATP) have weathered years of attempts by members of the House and the Bush Administration to eliminate the program, but this may be the biggest hurdle yet: The Senate Appropriations Committee approved language calling for the program's termination as part of the Department of Commerce fiscal year 2007 appropriations. The first of only two ATP-related sentences included in the Senate Committee report 109-580 accompanying H.R. 5672 conveys the weariness of the battle as the Committee conveys their defeat: "The Committee will allow for the phase out of activities for ATP. No funds are provided in fiscal year 2007 for ATP, and the Committee believes that sufficient funds were provided as part of fiscal year 2006 under this title to cover all necessary close out costs associated with ATP." The Bush Administration has repeatedly called for the program's termination and the House of Representatives has often agreed. Program supporters have always counted on some funding in the Senate's version of the bill and strong pressure in conference to continue the program. It would now take an amendment to restore…

In a report released last week, a Toronto group says that creative industries may soon overtake ICT and business services as the fastest growing sector in the region's economy. In order to preserve this momentum and ensure that other industries benefit from the presence of a strong creative sector, the authors recommend enlisting regional leaders to create programs that support creative people, creative enterprises, affordable spaces for creative work, and a shared community vision. The report is the culmination of almost two years of work by Toronto's Creative Cities Leadership Team, with support from the University of Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Culture, the City of Toronto, and the Ministry of Research and Innovation. Similar case studies by the Strategies for Creative Cities project are now being undertaken in New York, San Francisco, London, Barcelona and Berlin. A report on London was released earlier this year. According to the project, creative industries are those producing cultural goods, including media and broadcasting, architecture, the performing arts, advertising, design, and publishing. Creative…

"More than one-third of the nation's loss of manufacturing jobs between 2000-2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin," write Howard Wial and Alec Friedhoff in a new paper from the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution. Bearing the Brunt: Manufacturing Job Loss in the Great Lakes Region: 2000-2005 reveals that, despite these statistics, manufacturing - with its 38 percent increase in productivity during the period - remains a major driver in six of the seven state's economies. The change was dramatic in most of the studied states, in which more than one in five manufacturing jobs in 2000 did not exist by 2005. For five of the seven states, the percent change in manufacturing employment exceeded the national average of -17.6 percent: Michigan (-24.3 percent); New York (-22.7 percent); Pennsylvania (-20.9 percent); Illinois (-20.8 percent); and Ohio (-20.3 percent). After discussing the impact of this most recent restructuring of U.S. manufacturing, Wial and Friedhoff look more closely at the impact of the job losses on the 25…

Also released this week, and related to the negative change of U.S. manufacturing employment, is a new working paper by members of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Outsourcing Jobs? Multinationals and US Employment, by Ann Harrison and Margaret McMillan, examines the labor market decisions of U.S. multinationals at home and abroad for the years 1977 to 1999. Using firm level data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the authors econometric model reveals changes in the employment and operations of U.S. multinationals is correlated to whether the affiliated country is a low-income or high-income nation. Using a variety of different theoretical approaches to estimating labor demand and a range of econometric techniques, Harrison and McMillan found, as one might expect, that "employment in low income countries substitutes for employment at home. Employment in high income affiliates, however, is generally complementary with U.S. employment. Second, U.S. capital investments in both high and low income affiliates are associated with lower employment in the United States." In addition, the model's…

The six position opportunities described below were posted on the SSTI Job Corner over the last week. For more information, including complete details on responsibilities, qualifications and application deadlines (when available), visit http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm. Georgia Tech's Program in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (STIP), a joint program of the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute, seeks applicants for two postdoctoral positions: (1) program manager; and (2) research associate II. Applicants should have a background and interests in one or more of these STIP research thrusts: strategic technologies and regional innovation clusters; research commercialization; universities and technology development; knowledge measurement; scientific and technological human capital; industrial modernization; and diversity and innovation. A doctoral degree in public policy, city and regional planning, economics, management or a related discipline is required. Competitive salary and benefits packages based on experience. These are both one-year positions and may be renewed annually.…