SSTI Digest

More special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have been formed in 2020 than in the last several years combined. These entities have helped some high-profile unicorns go public recently, including DraftKings and Nikola Corp. PitchBook recently suggested, backed by several transactions involving electric vehicle companies, that SPACs may be well-suited to taking companies with relatively high product costs public. Here are five things for tech-based economic development practitioners to know about SPACs.

1. SPACs provide an alternative path to going public

Nearly half of voters within battleground states have a deep level of trust in scientists, according to a recent study conducted by Third Way. This represents a significant increase from the 21 percent of voters who held scientists in high esteem in 2016, and is in line with Pew Research Center’s earlier report that found 39 percent of U.S. adults trust science and believe scientists act in the public’s best interest.

Apprenticeships, which will be celebrated during National Apprenticeship Week beginning Nov. 8, are receiving renewed attention and being highlighted as an avenue of economic mobility. Two recent reports highlight the opportunities of apprenticeships, the promise they hold for economic mobility, their expanding reach and a new effort in California to reach 500,000 apprenticeships by the year 2029.

Growing out of a local initiative in central Kentucky, the Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education (FAME) began as a way to build a talent pipeline among Toyota Motor North America and a few other firms and has now grown into a national model of employer-provided training through a network of nearly 400 companies in 13 states. A report from Opportunity America and the Brookings Institution examines the program from the perspective of its benefits for students and what exactly has made it work by examining the oldest and most developed state network – Kentucky FAME.

In an effort to help Alabamians advance into higher-paying careers and understand how higher income from new careers can establish a path toward self-sufficiency, the state of Alabama and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta have partnered to launch a new career tool. The Dashboard for Alabamians to Visualize Income Determinations (DAVID) is designed to help low-income workers fearful of the benefits cliff (the sudden loss of public assistance as income increases) attain economic self-sufficiency as they plan for future career development. Gov. Kay Ivey said in a release that the tool will help Alabama reach its attainment goal of adding 500,000 credentialed workers to the workforce by 2025.

New analysis from the World Economic Forum (WEF) forecasts an 85 million global loss in jobs by the year 2025 due to pandemic-induced increase in technology adoption. While social distancing measures such as remote work have already brought many white collar workers into the “future of work,” the quickened pace of technology adoption and automation across all sectors will create greater employment challenges for lower paid and lower skilled workers. The WEF’s Future of Jobs Report 2020 also indicates that the jobs created to work with these new technologies could reach 97 million by 2025. However, business leaders and the public sector must take action to promote equitable workforce development and prepare all workers for the jobs of the future.

First-time beginning students looking to pursue post-secondary education tumbled this fall, showing a 16.1 percent decrease nationally when compared with last year’s figures, according to recently released data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That decline was even worse at community colleges, down 22.7 percent compared to a 1.4 percent increase the previous year. All told, undergraduate enrollment is down 4.0 percent compared to the same time last year, while graduate enrollment saw a 2.7 percent increase, amounting to an overall college enrollment decrease of 3.0 percent as of Sept. 24.

In 2018, 5.8 million students at colleges and universities within the United States were either the children of first-generation immigrants or were immigrants themselves, which accounted for 28 percent of the total student population and was a noticeable increase from the 2.9 million enrolled in 2000. This data serves as the foundation of a new report from the Migration Policy Institute, Immigrant-Origin Students in U.S. Higher Education: A Data Profile, that explores the growing role first- and second-generation immigrants play within the nation’s higher education landscape.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced $43.3 million for 51 projects in the region’s coal-impacted communities. More than half of the awards will support recovery-to-work efforts or broadband initiatives. To date, ARC has awarded over $238 million and supported 293 projects. Funding for the awards is made available through the POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) Initiative, an initiative that aims to help communities and regions that have been affected by job losses in coal mining, coal power plant operations, and coal-related supply chain industries due to the changing economics of America’s energy production.

In Washington and Brussels, lawmakers are increasingly vocal about expanding the application of antitrust rules within the tech sector. Recent activity includes a report from Democrats on the House antitrust subcommittee, the Trump administration preparing an antitrust suit against Google, and the European Union (EU) considering new antitrust rules following billions of dollars in fines to major tech companies. While much of these actions’ coverage focuses on how changes would affect the companies that are being targeted by these efforts, the impacts would affect the entire tech sector.

In a recently revised working paper from the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the contemporary rise of populism is explained in a new light, that of unfair economic outcomes, often in the form of low social mobility. In his paper Social Mobility Explains Populism, Not Inequality or Culture, Harvard Growth Lab’s Eric S. M. Protzer explores the close correlation between areas of low social mobility and those that have experienced a rise in populist thinking.

Noting that “the realities of populist movements are threatening long-standing democratic institutions and practices,” Protzer points to Hungary and Turkey as examples of countries that have descended into authoritarianism after electing populists early on. He suggests that populism be confronted to ward off similar trajectories in other nations, and that to do so its roots must be understood.  

Utah and Maryland have climbed the ranks and moved into third and fourth place behind two long-standing leaders in the Information Technology and Information Foundation’s (ITIF) State New Economy Index. The index measures states’ structural capacity for successfully navigating a global economy that is increasingly driven by technological innovation. ITIF’s recent release of the updated 2020 index and state rankings provides a long-term picture of how several states have been strengthening their economies for the future. 

ITIF defines states that are well positioned to embrace the innovation-driven New Economy in terms of how closely the structures and makeups of their economies match the ideal economic structure for the New Economy. Specifically, ITIF uses 25 indicators spread across the following five weighted categories:

With the continuing development of efficient technologies, energy consumption may drop 60 percent by 2050 while continuing to provide decent living standards, according to a new study. Research by the University of Leeds, published as Providing Decent Living with Minimum Energy: A Global Scenario in Global Environmental Change, developed a roadmap for lowering worldwide energy usage. The study found that global energy usage could fall over 60 percent from today’s levels through a combination of “the most efficient technologies available and radical demand-side transformations that reduce excess consumption to sufficiency-levels.”