A changing workforce The nation’s workforce demands look vastly different today than they did just a few years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic, economic challenges, and complex technological developments across all industries continue to change the way America works. The pandemic forced the country to re-think its supply chain strategy, pivoting from a system of interdependence […]

The federal government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the whole world, spending over $630 billion each year. In recent years, small businesses have experienced a vast decline in their participation rate in federal contracts; new entrants that are small businesses have declined 79% from 2005-2019, driving a renewed effort among policymakers […]

Betsy Hodges, former Mayor of Minneapolis and expert in local anti-racism policies, with mayors and experts explored policies that explicitly address racial justice in systemic ways. The conversation ranged from specific policies to understanding how systems can affect people in unseen and insidious ways. Join us for a deeper understanding of how local policy, systems, and racial bias prevent economic inclusion and how some leaders are talking the problem head on.

Education is necessary for individual economic achievement. Failings in the education system directly result in economic exclusion, particularly for already vulnerable populations. The former Mayor of Kansas City, Sly James, made education a focus of his administration often argued for early childhood education would have positive impact on economic outcomes for the community as a whole. James gathered local leaders to discuss how other communities implemented early childhood education and connected it to economic growth.

In this conversation, Mark Stodola, former Mayor of Little Rock and policy leader on the future of work, is joined by Chattanooga, Tennessee Mayor Andy Berke; Huntington, West Virginia Mayor Steve Williams; Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin; Des Moines, Iowa Mayor Frank Cownie; and Juliet Schor, Economist and Sociology Professor at Boston College. The discussion ranged from whether the gig-economy lived up to the hype, or did it merely exacerbate already existent issues. Also, they discussed what a prepared workforce might look like, and how that might impact entrepreneurship in cities.

Fresh on the heels of Kauffman’s annual Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship, elected leaders from four cities across the United States joined host RJ Berry, former mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to discuss how to best help small businesses prosper as part of their communities’ broader coronavirus recovery strategies.

A CSV format text file is available for each file. Data file names correspond to the table names that are recorded in the codebook, with extension “csv” (table_name.csv). There is also a STATA data file (table_name.dta) for each table, except for patent_abstracts and grant_abstracts. For most scholars, even before downloading the COMETS data, the codebook will prove more […]

Too many communities concentrate on attracting businesses from afar instead of growing them at home. In a thriving ecosystem, entrepreneurship empowers individuals, improves standards of living, and creates jobs, wealth, and innovation in the economy. But the success of an entrepreneurial ecosystem can’t be bought; it has to be built. In the 2019 State of […]

Connect with policymakers on your home turf. Though new businesses are vital to our country’s economic growth, many policymakers may not know about the latest startups in their states and districts and the challenges entrepreneurs face. Congressional Startup Day, formerly Startup Week Across America, is an opportunity during the annual August congressional recess for senators […]

Principal Investigators: Lynne G. Zucker and Michael R. Darby Assistant Director/Computer Scientist: Jason Fong Graduate Students: 
Hsing-Hau Chen, 
Nahoko Kameo, 
Menji Kang, ?marita Natt
, Yong Yang NSF REU Fellows, Undergraduates: 
Lauren Stabile