February 2005  

The EconData.Net Monthly Newsletter

SITE OF THE MONTH:  SPACE AVAILABLE

Brookings Institution's Critical Analysis of Convention Center's and Economic Development
Around the country, cities of every size are building (or expanding) their convention centers in hopes of capturing a larger share of the nation's convention and trade show business. A new report released in January by the Brookings Institution injects a note of reality into the often inflated estimates of convention industry growth. Written by Heywood Sanders of the University of Texas at San Antonio, "Space Available" catalogs current convention center expansion plans; not only has the total amount of convention space increased 50 percent since 1990, but there are 44 major expansions underway. The latest trend in the industry is publicly subsidized hotels. This expansion comes in the face of significant declines in convention exhibits and attendance, and the resulting glut of capacity has set off a vicious bidding war of incentives that threatens to erode the meager financial returns from the convention center business. The report offers city-by-city profiles of convention center activity, documenting attendance trends, past and current expansion plans, and gaps between projected and actual economic results. (Full disclosure: EconData.Net editors are affiliated with the Brookings Institution, but were not involved in preparing or reviewing the "Space Available" report).
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050117_conventioncenters.htm

Census Releases New Population Estimates

2004 State Level Estimates Include Net International and Domestic Migration
US Population grew by nearly 3 million (about 1 percent) over the last year. The Census Bureau's estimates of state-by-state growth show the relative contributions of natural increase, international immigration, and net domestic migration. Population estimates are based on the population as of July 1, 2004, and estimates of change cover the preceding 12 months. Nevada was the fastest growing state in the nation for the 18th consecutive year. The nation gained 1.2 million net international migrants and 21 states experienced net out-flows of residents to other places in the US.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/003153.html

New BEA County Level Compensation Series

County Estimates of Compensation by Industry: 1998-2003
One of the mainstays of the statistical system is the Bureau of Economic Analysis' Regional Economic Information System (REIS). BEA has made a major enhancement to REIS by beefing up county-level data on compensation, now breaking this data out by detailed NAICS industry. Employee compensation?-the sum of wage and salary disbursements and supplements to wages and salaries--is a key statistic in the personal income account. The compensation by industry estimates for 1998-2003 are presented in a new table?CA06, Compensation of Employees by Industry. The estimates of compensation by industry cover 114 industries and aggregates for 3,111 counties. In addition to the county estimates, BEA also is releasing compensation by industry for metropolitan areas, micropolitan areas, combined statistical areas, and BEA economic areas. (Analyst's trick: With the release of the CA06 data, you can now compute proprietors' income by industry -- simply subtract CA06 data from earned income by industry data in BEA's CA05 table.) 

Kudos to BEA for accelerating the publication of its county level data, which are now available only 13 months after the end of the latest reporting period (December 2003), rather than the 17-month lag which has been the historical norm.
http://www.bea.gov/bea/regional/reis/

Fannie Mae's Property Geo-Coder

A Handy Tool for Finding Info About Specific Addresses
Ever wanted to find out what census tract a particular street address was located in? Fannie Mae developed this tool to generate instant information about eligibility for certain mortgage programs, but you can use it to get other information as well. Enter a street address and the site looks up the zip-plus-four code, generates a census tract FIPS code, lets you know whether the address is in the central city, and tells you the census tract's minority population and median income as a percent of the region's average. Free registration is required. 
https://commlend.efanniemae.com/PropertyGeocoder/

Newsletter of the Month:  NASVF Net News

Tracking State Level Technology Related Economic Development News
Wouldn't it be handy if you had someone read through dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of local newspapers and business periodicals and wrote you a crisp, informative two page synthesis of everything they had to say about state and local efforts to promote technology-based industries?  George Lipper of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds does this every week, and you can subscribe to the NASVF Newsletter free.  In addition to a short summary of each news story, you'll find a link to the original source.  The newsletter provides a heads up on breaking statistics on entrepreneurship, venture capital and similar subjects, as well as related stories.  The newsletter also tracks job openings and personnel changes in related organizations, and provides a calendar of pertinent events.  You can view the most recent newsletter, and also subscribe at the following website:
http://www.nasvf.org/web/netnews.nsf/lookup/1

NEW LINKS

A Review of 2004's Sites of the Month
Instead of new links, we offer a quick compendium of last years very best, our 2004 Site of the Month Picks.  If you didn't check them out when we first flagged them, here's your opportunity to see them again.

• January:  Development Report Card of the States
  http://drc.cfed.org/

• February:  Smart Behavioral Risk Factors
  http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss-smart/index.asp

• March:   Quarterly Workforce Indicators
  http://lehd.dsd.census.gov/led/01/004/frm_index_html.html

• April:  Air Travel Price Index
  http://www.bts.gov/programs/economics_and_finance/air_travel_price_index/

• May:  HRSA Geospatial Data Warehouse
  http://datawarehouse.hrsa.gov/ 

• June:  Higher Ed Info
  http://www.higheredinfo.org

• July:  EEO Data Tool
  http://www.census.gov/eeo2000/index.html 

• August:  Center for the Study of Innovation and Productivity
  http://www.frbsf.org/csip/data.php

• September:  Educational Attainment by State
  http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps2003/tab13.xls

• October:  NCES Common Core of Data
  http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/search.asp

• November:  2002 Economic Census
  http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDSUMM.HTM

• December:  Northwest Area Foundation Economic Indicators
  http://www.indicators.nwaf.org/

Reminder:  Gross Metropolitan Product

Comments are due to BEA on Gross Metropolitan Product Series
Over the past year, EconData.Net and a number of our subscribers have been encouraging the Bureau of Economic Analysis to move ahead with plans to develop a new Gross Metropolitan Product data series. In response to our efforts, BEA has included the GMP data series in its draft strategic plan (see pp. 7 and 17).
http://www.bea.gov/bea/about/Director.htm#Strategic

The deadline for comments on the draft plan February 28, 2005. So if you haven't done so already, have a look at the plan, and send your comments to:  comments@bea.gov. When you do so, please cc us at comments@econdata.net. In this time of tight federal budgets, every comment is important--let BEA know how a GMP data series will benefit your work.