This ties into my TJ column today about research. When I came back to New Brunswick in 1991, the province was already becoming known for its geomatics and GIS expertise from the excellent work at UNB. So the question is…
Continue ReadingNobel prize in economic development
Someone sent me an email asking for practical ways that New Brunswick could become the Davos of economic development. I’m not the most creative guy around but why not pull from other examples? How about finding some CEO or whomever…
Continue ReadingThe Davos of economic development
There is an interesting story in the Financial Post about a summit held in Fredericton recently on the topic of entrepreneurship. The title of the piece is “Can New Brunswick become the Davos of entrepreneurship?”. We have discussed the topic…
Continue ReadingA kind of moral hazard
KPMG is out with their tax competitiveness model (building on their operating cost model from earlier this year). You will find that Moncton and Fredericton are the lowest cost jurisdictions in the word (among the jurisdictions compared) for several industries…
Continue ReadingIt’s the Economy, Stupid and elections
My third post this morning – a little overkill but I had promised to write this one for someone who asked. Because we are heading into an election in the fall, I was asked if I endorse specific parties or…
Continue ReadingAcademic economic development: redux
I just wanted to follow up quickly on a few comments I received about my column yesterday. There does seem to be a pile of academic research in the area of community economic development but I make a big distinction…
Continue ReadingThere is nothing new under the sun
I have blogged several times over the years about the Lord government’s “report card to New Brunswickers” that I received in my mailbox one day. It was a masterpiece of statistical spin for political purposes – unrivalled in my opinion until…
Continue ReadingOwn the economic development podium
Someone sent me this very interesting article about Own the Podium and its implications for wider public policy. At its core, OTP had a “mandate to identify and develop those athletes with the most potential to succeed in the games.” …
Continue ReadingMeasuring the impact of economic development
I know a lot of economic developers don’t like talking about direct measurement because they, rightly, say there are too many broader environmental issues that impact economic development and that broader environment will skew the results (up or down) of…
Continue ReadingNB employment growth second slowest in Canada over past year
From the latest labour force survey out today. It’s the same story. The Canadian economy churns out 109,000 new jobs in the past month and NB churns out 800 of them. These are the year over year employment growth numbers…
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