benchmarking report

A recent report from the Intellectual Property Association revealed the top 300 organizations granted U.S. patents in 2010. IBM, Samsung and Microsoft led this year's list. Fourteen universities, including 13 U.S. institutions and one from China, made the top 300, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Leading universities include the University of California Regents, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Read the full list...

From 2000 to 2008, the U.S. ranked 18th out of 30 countries in the growth of government-funded university research, according to a new report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). In University Research Funding: the United States is Behind and Falling, Robert Atkinson and Luke Stewart compared the U.S. government and business funding for public university research against 29 other developed countries. The results indicate that both government-funded and business-funded have fallen dramatically behind and will continue to slip further behind several nations including China, Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

"Productivity growth is below the average rate of growth that has historically been recorded 39 months after a business cycle started," according to Growing Concerns About Future U.S. Competitiveness — a policy brief by the Center for American Progress. In this report, researchers examined several short-term economic trends (e.g., business investments and innovation) that help to stimulate long-term competitiveness. The brief contends that sagging productivity growth partly can be attributed to business investment that is at its lowest level in four decades and barely is keeping pace with the rates of depreciation on existing capital. Though, according to data, businesses have sufficient funds to finance more investment. The report also found that the U.S. innovation is lagging behind foreign innovation. According to utility patent data, the share patents granted to U.S. entities (49.1 percent) by the U.S. Patent Office is at an all time low. This continues a 15-year-long slide. Read the brief...

A larger number of states are positioned to capitalize on rising employment due to high-growth industries, according to a new report from Wells Fargo's Economic Group — Employment Dynamics and State Competitiveness. These states (i.e., Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Virginia and Texas) have been able to couple several high-growth industries with a skilled workforce to build their competitive advantage. The report utilized 20 years of employment data in 25 major industries to project industries that are likely to see high employment growth nationally, including finance & insurance, professional & technical services, accommodation & food services, other services and healthcare & social assistance industries. The researchers also found that more than a majority of states (more than 26) possess a competitive advantage in at least 16 of the 25 industries. However, the effects of the Great Recession may severely hinder some states' ability to capitalize on their competitive advantage due to limited worker mobility (e.g., Florida). The report advises policymakers to focus on long-term workforce training programs and focus resources on selected industries that maintain competitive advantages. Read the report...

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released their annual State and Local Governments' Fiscal Outlook and long-term projections paint a bleak picture. Even though both state and local government near-term fiscal outlooks have improved slightly since 2010, these sectors face long-term revenue declines that will necessitate "substantial policy changes" to stimulate revenue growth. According to the report, without policy changes, governments will face an increasing fiscal gap between receipts and expenditures in the coming years that would force across-the-board programmatic cuts. The primary long-term driver of fiscal challenges is the increasing costs of health-related costs. Based upon current and historical spending and revenue patterns, GAO's model projects the receipts and the expenditures for each sector until 2060. Since 2007, GAO has published long-term fiscal simulations for both the state and local sectors using National Income and Product Accounts data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read the report...

Three recent reports from Maine provide insight into the challenges of fostering an innovative economy in a rural state. Overall, the research suggests that Maine has done well in its efforts to support startups, but could do more to help those startups expand and find new markets. By encouraging innovation-based businesses to expand to markets outside of Maine and by offering mentoring services, the state could overcome the stagnation that can occur when companies and states focus on local markets.

Massachusetts continues to be the country's most successful high-tech economy, according to the 2010 edition of the Milken Institute State Technology and Science Index: Enduring Lessons for the Intangible Economy. The Index uses 79 indicators to evaluate and rank state performance in five categories: R&D inputs, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, human capital capacity, technology and science workforce, and technology concentration and dynamism. Since the last update in 2008, Utah climbed three places to rank fifth overall due, in part, to improved risk capital availability. Alaska and Ohio had the greatest improvement, each moving up seven spots in the overall rankings. Download the Index (requires login) ...