After the crazy financial environment of the last year, consumer finance (or household financial usage) surveys appear to be increasing in popularity or frequency.  The Federal Reserve Board of Governors made a really astute decision to refield their popular Survey of Consumer Finance, last done in 2007, but not to implement a new 2009 cohort but rather to go back to their respondents from 2007 and collected panel data on the finances of these households.  And apparently, they have added in some logic to their questionnaire such that if a respondent was a business owner in 2007 but not in 2009 they will ask what happened to that business.  This holds great potential in studing entrepreneurial households.  Unfortunately, the sample sizes here are so small that it the utility of the data could be limited depending on incidence rates.

Additionally, the World Bank is considering some expanded work in this area that if approved could be quite exciting.  Also from the World Bank, a recent paper highlights some methodological issues about collecting data on financial service usage:

I am really excited to be participating in a November 18, 2009, workshop that NORC is putting on titled "Assessing the Results of Microdata Access" in Washington, DC.  It should be an interesting session in that it will have several different data producers discussing aspects of their strategies for making data available for research.  More information is available on the NORC Data Enclave website. 

I will be attending a mini-conference on user innovation which the National Science Foundation is putting on next month.  It strikes me as something others might be interested in. 

• General story of and evidence for the paradigm shift from closed, producer-centered innovation toward open, user innovation.  Economic reasons for these changes.
• Data:  Canada and Netherlands surveys on the frequency of user innovation among firms; UK survey of product modification and development by end users/consumers
• Status of measurement today: What we can measure reasonably well now; what are the key statistical indicator and data collection shortcomings?
• What are we likely to gain from better understanding and measurement of the user innovation phenomena?  (business/economic opportunities, organization management, public policy, etc.)

• Participant reactions to and comments on Session I presentations
• Group perspective on where the user innovation ought to fit in the larger scheme of research on innovation and innovation policy analysis
• Discussion of what a next phase of user innovation research activities might most usefully look like.  
• Discussion of next steps and action items.

The Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth has issued a call for original research papers to be presented at the Third Annual Research Symposium on The Economics and Law of the Entrepreneur at Northwestern University School of Law. The Symposium will run from approximately 12:00 P.M. on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 to 3:00 PM on Friday, June 18th, 2010.  Deadline for paper submissions is February 10, 2010.

Over the last few years, I have seen only a few topics spread quickly across surveys - user innovation, management practices, and effectuation.  Effectuation (read definition) is definitely the topic from this list which I feel I understand the least so I hope to learn more in the next year.  Effectuation is a concept which was raised by Saras D. Sarasvathy at Darden but now has a much larger community of scholars involved in its exploration.  Indeed, you can read more about effectuation on a website created on the topic.  There are several upcoming workshops for doctoral students and educators on the topic.  Additionally, another event is coming up on the topic in December 2009:

In a new report just released today, the Kauffman Foundation (with leadership from Rob Fairlie) partnered with Fortune Small Business to examine the best places to launch a company in the United States.  Growing economies, affordable workers, stable housing markets, and low crime are just some of the features that led to the top cities in the list:

1.    1. Oklahoma City
2.    2. Pittsburgh
3.    3. Raleigh
4.    4. Houston
5.    5. Hartford
6.    6. Washington, D.C.
7.    7. Charlotte
8.    8. Austin
9.    9. New York City
10.   10. Baltimore

Fortune Small Business has developed a lot of online content to supplement this release including lots of data listings which will be of interest to many. 

The Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum will be holding a short workshop on October 30, 2009, on "Beyond the Crisis – Implications for SMEs, entrepreneurship and innovation" in Washington, DC.  I won't be able to attend this event because of a previous commitment but it looks potentially interesting.  See October 13 version of the agenda.

Although there is little doubt that households have undergone incredible changes to their spending, investment, and other activities as a result of the current recession, data on this topic are not readily available.  A new HNW/Forbes Wealth Pulse survey gives insights into a hard-to-reach population but one of great interest - high-net worth individuals.  It finds respondents who expect a recovery soon and see opportunity in the current economy to grow investments.  Interestingly, it finds many millionaires are cutting back on charitable giving (28 percent) but even more (51 percent) plan to give as much or more to charity. 

The Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), the Federal Reserve's seminal research product in this area, is only available through 2007 (and for every three-year period before that for several cycles).  But, there is hope that in mid-2010 the Fed will have some information available on consumer finance in 2009.  What the Fed has done, to the best of my current understanding, is to refield the SCF in 2009 on the same sample that it used in 2007.  As such, they will be creating a short longitudinal panel of households which should allow for in-depth analysis of the effects of the current recession.  This was a brilliant methodological move in my estimation but one that really should be a part of the ongoing design of the program.  The next wave of the SCF will collect data on a new sample in 2010, and I believe in that wave forward, they plan to implement an intentional longitudinal design.  This should prove very useful to researchers and policymakers in this area as we can actually examine the factors which appear to drive change at the microlevel.  Incidentally, the SCF has an oversample of wealthy households (who are disproportionately households which own businesses) so some of what HNW/Forbes attempted to capture here will be possible to analyze in a more robust sample through the SCF. 

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently held a brainstorming workhop on how innovation conceptually could be measured in education.  From the presentations shown online, I can't tell if there were major conclusions reached, but I found one document interesting for summing up particular possible directions.  I would be very hesitant to implement a Community Innovation Survey-like direction for education because I just have a hard time conceptualizing the theoretical model and questions from that line of work in the education environment.  Education and public services more generally are very different concepts for measuring innovation.  It is good to see the conversation but I have trouble seeing much progress made here unless there is an institutional player driving this conversation which I am not aware of. 

The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America (ASTRA) has released a new tool aimed at allowing regions in the United States to compare innovation locally to other regions.  After some initial concern, I have corresponded about the tool with ASTRA's Vice President for Research, Robin Gaster.  Robin explained, and should be updating the website, that this was a demonstration project and data hasn't been updated in two years.  With that, on the positive, the interface is flexible at letting you create custom reports comparing different regions.  On the negative, I have had some difficulty in navigating their interface, particularly in finding details such as what the source data is for a particular variable.  As such, I am going to comment on one component of their index, firms and establishments, which are listed as outputs of the innovation process.

For the firms and establishments component, ASTRA appears to use the following data (although I can't find series names, in most cases the actual series are obvious because of limited data availability on the topics):

• Nonemployer firms - number, Published: 2005      
• Nonemployer firms - receipts, Published: 2005    
• Business closings (% of all firms), Published: 2005    
• New companies per 1000 workers, Published: 2005    
• Firms by state - 0 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 0000 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake)  
• Firms by state - all firms - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)     
• Firms by state - 100-499 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Firms by state - 10-19 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)  
• Firms by state - 1-4 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002)  
• Firms by state - 20-99 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Firms by state - 5-9 employees - 1995-2002 Firm Size Data by State and Metropolitan Statistical Area, Published: 1999 (although this is what they state it must be a mistake since data is through 2002) 
• Business bankruptcies by state Department of Justice, Published: 2006    

I am troubled that regions will not heed Robin's warning and take this data as demonstrating what they can pull because in most cases the data presented are several years out of date.  On all the state level firm size data, much better information is available from the Small Business Administration, Office of Advocacy, in most cases going through 2006.  Nonemployer statistics should be available through 2006 or 2007.  And relatively recent data available at the state level which should allow for tracking of business dynamics patterns from Census or the Bureau of Labor Statistics don't seem to be considered. 

Thus I see this Regional Innovation Index tool as a good exploratory tool on the types of data one might consider in evaluation innovation at the regional level but users should realize that new data developments are not included here.  .