{"id":11962,"date":"2012-09-28T10:54:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T14:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=11962"},"modified":"2012-12-07T12:40:52","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T17:40:52","slug":"nh-disadvantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/09\/28\/nh-disadvantage\/","title":{"rendered":"N.H.’s Productivity Weakening As Neighboring Economies Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Center For Public Policy Studies<\/p><\/div>\n

New Hampshire may have weathered the recession relatively well, but as other states\u2019 economies are growing, New Hampshire\u2019s is slowing down. \u00a0That\u2019s the word from the Center for Public Policy Studies, which released a report<\/a>\u00a0this week outlining some discouraging trends in New Hampshire\u2019s economy. One of the study\u2019s authors, Dennis Delay, spoke with NHPR\u2019s Brady Carlson about the study.\nhttps:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/files\/2012\/09\/nht0927bc.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n

\u201cOver the long term, places with strong, distinctive identities are more likely to prosper than places without them…. Livability is not a middle-class luxury. It is an economic imperative\u201d \u2013 Robert Solow<\/em><\/div>\n

Delay says the CPPS turned to the celebrated economist Robert Solow, whose model of economic growth relies on three elements: (1) the availability of labor; (2) an increase in skills and productivity of that labor force; and (3) investment by companies in things like machinery and software.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s and 1990s, Delay says, New Hampshire excelled in all three of these metrics. The labor force was growing fast thanks to in-migration from Massachusetts and other New England states, and those incoming residents were very highly educated, making New Hampshire one of the most highly educated states in the nation. Furthermore, money was flowing into the state to grow the facilities they worked in.<\/p>\n

But \u201cwhat we found out,\u201d Delay says, \u201cis that those three things have changed fundamentally over the last couple years, and there\u2019s every reason to think that they probably won\u2019t improve in the near term unless something is done from a public policy perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, Delay says, all three of those indicators have slowed. First, fewer people are moving to New Hampshire, meanwhile, the current population is aging out of the workforce. On top of that, as younger Granite Staters leave the state for college and choose not to return, the workforce\u2019s level of education is declining, too \u2013 making New Hampshire less productive.\u00a0 And finally, while investment in facilities and technology has increased in other states, it has slowed in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

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