Why Urban States Are More Productive Than Rural Ones (And New England’s A Case In Point)

Emmanuel Huybrechts

Heavily urbanized states--like Massachusetts--tend to be more productive than their rural counterparts

A new report from Credit Suisse has been getting a fair bit of buzz in the business press, largely thanks to the graph below.  The report focused on how urbanization affects developing economies.  As an example of the differences between rural and urban productivity, researchers broke down government data on American GDP by state and by hour.  Then they looked at how urbanized the states are.  And they found that, by and large, the more urban the state, the more more productive it was on average.  (The glaring exceptions to this rule being ultra-resource-rich Alaska and Wyoming.) Continue Reading

Why The Eurozone Crisis Matters To New Hampshire’s Economy

Aris Messinis / AFP/Getty Images

The sovereign debt crisis has hurt the European economy and sparked unrest across the continent

To people not directly involved in fixing, analyzing, or monitoring the Eurozone crisis, it can take on the character of black magic.  And it’s easy to think that the dark arts of the European Central Bank’s low-interest lending initiatives, national bond auctions, and bailout talk have little bearing on our daily lives.

In fact, they very much matter.

Economists say Europe’s ongoing sovereign debt difficulties could very well plunge the continent into a double-dip recession, if it hasn’t already.  And, as America’s recent history demonstrates, when the economy’s on the downswing, not many people are anxious to buy anything.  Those jitters ultimately hit the export economy…and when orders slow down, so does demand for workers to make the stuff we ship overseas.  Although tiny New Hampshire isn’t exactly a Rustbelt-style manufacturing powerhouse, the state makes a lot of advanced, high-demand products, which means it’s heavily exposed to what’s going on in Europe. Continue Reading

How–And Why–NH Resurrected A Help Center For Women Entrepreneurs

MaryAnn Manoogian is Executive Director for the new Center for Women’s Business Advancement.

Like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, the new Center for Women’s Business Advancement seeks to build upon the foundation of its predecessor of supporting women entrepreneurs in New Hampshire and to go much further.

The CWBA, located at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, celebrated its grand opening in February upon being awarded a five-year, $719,000 matching grant by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The CWBA provides free, one-on-one business counseling, workshops and other resources to women looking to start their own businesses – although male entrepreneurs are also welcome.

Continue Reading

New England Could See (Bigger) Gas Price Spikes Following Refinery Closures

Patrick Lin / AFP/Getty Images

Refinery closures could trigger bigger gas price spikes

The quirky calculus of oil price economics is notoriously complex.  What that often translates to, in terms of media coverage, is continual score-keeping.  How much have prices risen over the past week?  From this time a month ago?  A year ago?

Foster’s Daily Democrat is particularly good at keeping up with the flow of figures.  For example, the newspaper noted New Hampshire saw an average price increase of 5.3 cents a gallon last week.  The national average price spike was much lower, at only 1.4 cents per gallon.  Foster’s reports:

“Including the change in gas prices in New Hampshire during the past week, prices Sunday were 21.7 cents per gallon higher than the same day one year ago and 15.4 cents per gallon higher than a month ago… Continue Reading

Mystery Developer Hopes To Bring Big Warehouse–And 150 Jobs–To Concord

Jason Brackins / Flickr

A developer traced to a Massachusetts P.O. Box wants to build a big facility in Concord

A super-secret business that could bring a lot of jobs to Concord hopes to set up shop on Integra Drive.  As Ben Leubsdorf of the Concord Monitor reports:

“A developer is looking to build a sprawling warehouse operation on Integra Drive, off Manchester Street, that Concord officials say could employ 150 people.

But the name of the company that would use the proposed 350,000-square-foot facility seems a closely guarded secret. Land records provide few clues, and both City Manager Tom Aspell and Deputy City Manager for Development Carlos Baia said last week they don’t know who it is. Continue Reading

As Demand For Job Training Programs Increases, Federal Funding Decreases

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

As the demand for job training services continues in the face of high unemployment, federal funding for these programs has actually decreased

We’ve talked a lot recently about the so-called “skills gap” in New Hampshire vis-à-vis the manufacturing sector.  In a nutshell, the state’s fabricators say they have lots of openings for skilled labor, but not enough people are qualified to fill them.  Now, Motoko Rich reports for the New York Times that other sectors are demanding skilled and semi-skilled workers–and meeting with shortages, too.  Part of the problem, she writes, is that as demand for training programs has increased with unemployment over the years, the supply of federal funding for them has gone down dramatically:

“The Labor Department announced on Friday that employers had added only 120,000 new jobs in March, a disappointing gain after three previous months of nearly twice that level. But with 12.7 million people still searching for jobs, the country is actually spending less on work force training than it did in good times. Continue Reading

This Week’s Essential StateImpact

Thomas Hawk / Flickr

Here's the top five StateImpact posts you spotted this week

  1. Five Reasons Why Angel Investors (Think “Shark Tank”) Matter To The Economy: Our top post this week breaks down a new report from the University of New Hampshire explaining why this high-powered, super-secretive investment market is a key part of the national economy.
  2. What A Canadian Newspaper Reports About Hydro-Quebec (And Northern Pass): Normally, we break down what New Hampshire news outlets are reporting about this controversial project.  Now, we get Hydro-Quebec’s perspective, courtesy of the Montreal Gazette.
  3. (Mega-Big Mega Millions Jackpot Aside) When It Comes To The Lotto, A Lot Of “Suckers” Live In New England:  An in-depth look not only at Bloomberg’s “Sucker Index,” which rates states according to ticket sales and prize pay-outs, but at how much on average New Englanders spend on the lotto.
  4. Why The Mega Millions Jackpot Is Extra-Important For New Hampshire: One of our most popular series of posts is our look at how New Hampshire’s lottery is struggling in the face of competition from Massachusetts.  So we re-posted in honor of the Mega Millions frenzy.
  5. Executive Council Mulls Massive Medicaid Contract: NHPR’s Dan Gorenstein breaks down the big questions surrounding the biggest contract in state history.

Navy Admiral Calls Portsmouth Naval Shipyard A “Critical” Installation

Stacy Lynn Baum / Flickr

Talk of another round of BRAC closures has politicians from both NH and Maine nervous about the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard

With continued talk of pruning the Pentagon’s budget, the military has told Congress it plans to save money by starting a new round of base realignment and closure, or BRAC.  The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard was spared during the last BRAC round in 2005.  Still, the senate delegations from Maine and New Hampshire have been vocal in their protests against another look at American installations, especially the one in Kittery.  Now, as Deborah McDermott of SeacoastOnline.com reports, the Navy’s Chief of Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, has noted the importance of the shipyard:

“…Adm. Jonathan Greenert, touring Bath Iron Works on Wednesday, was asked about the prospect of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard surviving a base closure process.

‘Portsmouth fills a critical need for overhaul of our submarines and provides other things, as well. I don’t see that need diminishing at all in the future,’ he said.”

The shipyard’s main mission is overhauling and repairing Los Angeles-class submarines.

What The $25 Billion Mortgage Settlement Means For NH

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

States are dividing up a massive settlement with big banks. But what will the influx of money do for NH's foreclosure situation?

Since 2005, the number of foreclosures in New Hampshire has increased 700 percent. Last year, more than 3,800 families were forced out of their homes due to foreclosure.

New Hampshire is one of 49 states that signed on to a settlement between the federal government and the country’s five largest lenders — Bank of America, Citi, Wellsfargo, Ally/GMAC, and JP Morgan Chase — brought for misconduct in lending practices.

The banks are accused of fast tracking foreclosures through improper documentation by so-called “robo-signing,”  as well as engaging in another practice called dual tracking. Dual tracking occurs when borrowers are in the process of refinancing and the bank is also working to foreclose on them. Continue Reading

Five Reasons Why Angel Investors (Think “Shark Tank”) Matter To The Economy

Thomas Lohnes / AFP/Getty Images

A hallmark of angel investors is aggressive risk-taking in the hopes that when a company's ready to go on the market, they'll see big returns

If you’ve watched “Shark Tank” on ABC (or its British forbear “Dragon’s Den” on BBC in America), you’ve seen, to some extent, angel investors in action.  Underneath the high-gloss of ratings-driven reality TV, you can catch a glimpse of this opaque, mysterious investment market.  As Colleen Debaise of the Wall Street Journal explains, angel investments can act as bridges “between that money you’ve gotten from friends and family and the venture capital that you hope to secure down the road.”  Of course, there’s a price to pay: Continue Reading

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