Economic Development Quarterly

EDQ August 2024

The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research is home to Economic Development Quarterly (EDQ). EDQ is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing and bringing to the attention of policymakers, decision makers, and researchers the latest quality research findings in economic development.

Upjohn’s mission, vision, and core values of providing unbiased quality research in the areas of employment policy, labor market analysis, and economic and workforce development initiatives closely align with that of EDQ’s mission to promote research supporting the formulation of evidence-based economic development policies, programs, and practices.

We invite you to browse our most current issue, and encourage authors to submit research to EDQ in the areas of Economic Development Theory, Location Theory, Economic Development Finance, Foreign Trade, Economic Development Incentives, Industry Studies, State and Local Economic Development Policy, Labor Economics and Workforce Policy, and Urban and Regional Economies. For questions or additional information please contact: George Erickcek, Co-Editor; Timothy J. Bartik, Co-Editor; Shawn Rohlin, Co-Editor; or Claudette Robey, Managing Editor, or phone EDQ at 269-385-0469.

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Latest Research Featured in Economic Development Quarterly

August 2024; volume 38 issue 3 https://journals.sagepub.com/home/edq


We say a heartfelt goodbye to a founding figure in the development of Economic Development Quarterly, Larry Ledebur.  As Claudette and Jim Robey write in their remembrance, Larry was a guiding voice in the development of regional economic development and simply a great guy, whose smile and gentle demeanor will be sadly missed, but long remembered.


Neumark and Wohl in their paper, “Flying Blind on Job Creation Polices? A Case Study of California,” ask a simple but profound question: Are state job creation policies evidence-based and their answer is “kind of.”  Starting with Google searches, they examine available evaluations for a long list of economic development tools used in California and across most all 50 states. Of course, not all evaluations are the same, so the authors carefully reviewed the methodology used in each. The authors are careful to point out that their research is not about determining the effectiveness of identifying state economic and training programs but is focused on determining if there is evidence that these programs generate a positive economic impact.

Upjohn Institute researchers Christopher O’Leary and Kenneth Kline teamed with Thomas Stengle and Stephen Wandner in their paper “Why are Unemployment Insurance Claims So Low?to investigate reasons why claims for unemployment insurance (UI) have fallen off during the past 3 decades. Not only does this decline impact households, it also suggests that UI is losing its strength as a countercyclical policy and as a short-term forecasting tool.  They find that the decline in UI is due to the changing mix of industries and occupations, nationwide, as well as state-level changes in the program.  The authors suggest that this decline, which has regional economic development impacts, could be alleviated by changing federal rules that improve access to benefits.

Robert Manduca and Teresa Lynch proposed a new definition of regional industries in their paper, “Beyond Local and Traded: Evidence for a Third Industry Market Area Type and Implications for Regional Economic Development.” Traditional regional economic analysis separates industries into base (export) and non-base (local) activities. The authors offer a clear methodology to identify a third, middle group of industries, local/regional/traded (LRT), that serve an area that is greater than the local area but below the state level and account for approximately a third of all regional activity in a typical area.  These industries pay more than local industries and offer more entrepreneurship opportunities.

In their research note, “The Impact of a State-Level, Place-based Economic Development Program: A Difference-in-Differences Approach,” Michael Hicks and Dagney Faulk use a difference-in-differences methodology to estimate the economic impact of an Indiana place-based economic development program, The Regional Cities Initiative (RCI), which started in 2015. The analysis found evidence that RCI was associated with GDP, population, and employment growth in the treated area.  However, there was no evidence that it had an impact on house prices or earnings.

Finally, Martin Krzywdzinski reviewed Agile Against Lean: An Inquiry into the Production System of Hyundai Motors by Hyung Je Jo, Jun Ho Jong, and Chulsik Kim.  The authors examine Hyundai’s highly successful, authoritarian business model based on a “chaebol” structure, which is a “diversified business groups with no separation between control and ownership.” What is interesting about this business model is that it ignores the potential benefit of involving skilled, shop-floor workers in quality control and performance measures.  Second, the authors indicate that Hyundai has so far avoided the potential mismanagement problems long associated with a top-down corporate structure.