What's New - March 2003

Sites of the Month: Venture Economics & PWC Moneytree

March's Sites of the Month are a pair of sites that give you access to data on venture capital investment, brought to you by the joint efforts of Thomson Venture Economics, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Moneytree, and the National Venture Capital Association.  You can access the same underlying data through either of two sites.  We know the US has had a boom-and-bust economy in the past few years, and these sites show you what a wild ride its been.  Venture capital investment, which totaled $106 billion in 2000, was down to only $21 billion in 2002.  Venture capital investments are a good leading indicator of future growth in the economy, and these sites now have statistics reflecting deals done through the fourth quarter of last year.  

Venture Economics offers a report-oriented site that tracks the progress of venture capital investing by region, state, metropolitan area and congressional district over the past decade.  Look carefully too at the kind of deals being done, as most financings have shifted to follow-on or later round financings, rather than new startups.
http://www.ventureeconomics.com/vec/statshome.htm

PriceWaterhouseCoopers Moneytree site offers a polished drill-down interface that lets you look at historic data for particular states or industries, and to drill down to particular deals in the current quarter (provided you complete the free registration process).  http://www.pwcmoneytree.com/moneytree/index.jsp

New Links Added

The focus of our March new links is on crime data.  We offer statistics on hot cars, crime rates, and automobile accidents.  Be careful out there!

CCC Information Services
Most Stolen Vehicles
Annual list of 25 most stolen vehicles (year, make, model), by state.
http://www.cccis.com/news/moststolen/2001/2001veh.htm

National Insurance Crime Bureau
Top Vehicle Theft Areas
Annual report on motor vehicle theft rate, for metro areas.
http://www.nicb.org/services/top_theft_areas.html

Fast Forward, Inc.
 City Crime Rates and Comparisons, Sperling's BestPlaces
Crime statistics for over 2,500 cities and 328 metro areas, compiled from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
http://www.bestplaces.net/html/crime.html

Homefair.com
Relocation Crime Lab
Criminal justice data and index for communities; tool for comparing cities.
http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/crime.html

National Center for Statistics & Analysis, NHTSA
State Data System
Summary of motor vehicle traffic crashes from state crash data files.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-30/ncsa/SDS.html

More Science & Technology Indices

Everyone seems to be getting into the science and technology ranking game.  Two recent reports rank their states (and others) based on a range of S&T Indicators.  Our first example, released by the Santa Monica based Milken Institute, compares California to the other 50 states according to its own Science and Technology Index.  This index ranks the 50 states on five broad measures of science and technology activity including  Research & Development Inputs, Risk Capital and Entrepreneurial Infrastructure, Human Capital Investment, Technology and Science Workforce.  The index is based in turn, on 57 different measures.  
http://www.milkeninstitute.org/pdf/nst.pdf

Note:  Free registration is required to access the PDF file of this report.  A separate  printed volume is available for sale through the website--and is the only way to access the detailed data for states other than California.

Another interesting report dwelling heavily on science and technology indicators comes from Minnesota's Great North Alliance (GNA)--an organization of civic and business leaders in the Twin Cities.  GNA  has released its "Opportunity Forecast" a  comparison of economic and technological indicators for the Twin Cities and a variety of competitor regions, including Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle and others.  They analyze 58 indicators in a range of categories, including:  development capacity, innovation capacity, current performance and resource flow.  In addition to a well documented report and technical appendix, Great North Alliance also provides its data in an excel spreadsheet.  See the details at:
http://user566443.wx9.registeredsite.com/default.asp

Market-Oriented Competitiveness Studies

As our preceding item illustrates, there are many different ways of compiling indicators to characterize and rank state and metropolitan economies.  A number of laissez-faire analysts have developed their own indicators of competitiveness.

Clemson University has developed a study of Economic Freedom in the States, which parallels similar work that has been done internationally on economic freedom.  Their site computes an index of economic freedom by state, for 1999, analyzing issues such as fiscal policy, social welfare, size of government, regulation, and judiciary.
http://freedom.clemson.edu/index.htm

The Reason Public Policy Institute has prepared a Competitive Cities Report Card that ranks 44 cities based on the efficiency with which they provide 11 types of public services (e.g., libraries, street repair, police).
http://www.rppi.org/compcity/

The Beacon Hill Institute, Suffolk University is author of a State Competitiveness Report.  Their index of state competitiveness, published in 2001, examines in nine areas, including government and fiscal policy, institutions, infrastructure, human resources, technology, finance, openness, domestic competition, and environmental policy. (.pdf file)
http://www.beaconhill.org/MasterDocumentSCI_A1.pdf