As part of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Summer Institute, the Innovation Policy & the Economy (IPE) group will be holding a research meeting.  The session will take place on Monday, July 20, 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

The IPE group focuses on research in economics or other social sciences that analyzes or relates to significant issues of public policy affecting innovation, or its effects on the economy.  The group holds two meetings each year.  The summer meeting is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of research papers.  The audience will consist of both researchers and policy participants.  Preference will be given to empirical research, but interesting theoretical work that is closely-connected to real world problems will also be considered.

If you would like to present at this meeting, please send a PDF or your paper to Rob Shannon at rshannon@nber.org.

Submissions must be received by March 27, 2009.  Unfortunately, space is limited at the Summer Institute and thus it will not be possible to invite everyone who receives this call for papers.  Invited participants will receive logistical information in May.

If you have any questions, or need additional information, please contact Rob in the NBER's conference department at 617/868-3900 or rshannon@nber.org.

It's hard to know what to make of reports surfacing of a possible switch in reporting for the Census Bureau from the Commerce Department (and newly nominated Judd Gregg) to the White House.  While most of the media will focus on the upcoming decenial census, I am most concerned about the implications for the business-related activities of the Census.  Oversight of the Census Bureau was one of the meatier activities of the Department of Commerce so it is not a trivial activity to be taken on within the new White House.  The negative commentators will see conspiracy and jerrymandering (or the like) in the switch, if it actually happens, but perhaps it is more related to the Obama administration's seemingly data-obsessed nature?  Time will tell...

Read more coverage: CNBC; CNN

Yesterday I was at a closed meeting of experts at Eurostat, the European Union's statistical offices, on a newly approved "flexible module" for their structural business statistics. Lost already? Basicly, this means that Eurostat has been approved to perform a survey in 2010 on the theme of "access to capital". Read the official approval and legal mandate.

Eurostat has been planning and considering this new project for more than a year and has taken a lot of inspiration from our work with the Kauffman Firm Survey. Unbeknownst to them, the world would change a lot from when they conceptualized the project to the year of 2010, when they are now legally mandated to complete their work. While much about this project is still up in the air and to be written, I came away with some distinct impressions.  

• Problems. When Eurostat began thinking of such a project, they were most interested in looking at start-up financing. Mostly, what sorts of capital were start-ups trying to get but couldn't and how might that related to growth and high-growth? Eurostat went into the meeting of experts proposing to ask questions about start-up financing in 2003/4 in 2010, more than six years later.  In the Kauffman Firm Survey, we have intentionally only asked about the prior year of financing activities for our young firms.  This is because entrepreneurs (and most people) have great difficulty recalling things that happened in the distant past. Hence, after considering their concept and getting expert feedback at this meeting, Eurostat's initial purpose for their "Access to Finance" survey was thrown into doubt.   

• Opportunities. But just as entrepreneurs are always seeing opportunity and not roadblocks, by the end of our expert meeting the survey had been recast slightly to achieve what I think has incredible possibility.  Combining the financial crisis of late 2008 and now 2009 with Eurostat's mandated survey populations and survey time periods means that Eurostat is now on course to do a survey of small businesses, high-growth companies, and gazelles on the topic of finance and finance constraints in 2010.  They won't be able to look at everything they wanted, but the experts seemed confident that accurate and relevant information can be gathered on 2007 financing habits of the firm, 2009 financing habits, and 2009 attempted financing.  

This is a project we will continue to follow in the coming years.  I expect that there will be a proliferation of surveys on small business finance, but we can only hope that all of the projects look for opportunities to learn and complement each other.