Creative Class

Here is an abridged version of a press release today from the European Parliament.

Chancellor Angela Merkel gave her first speech to the European
Parliament as President-in-Office of the European Council. Chancellor
Merkel highlighted the forthcoming Berlin Declaration to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the European Union and the need for tolerance.

Mrs Merkel believed Europe already had a
soul, which was linked to its “tremendous diversity”… But
for diversity to exist, another quality was needed: freedom.  And real
freedom required respect for the freedom of others or, to use the
famous quotation attributed to Voltaire, “I may disapprove of what you
say but I will defend to the death your right to say it “… Ultimately,
she believed, “Europe’s soul is tolerance. Europe is the continent of
tolerance”. This lesson had taken a long time to learn and the worst
period of “hatred, devastation and destruction” lay not so far in the
past but this was all the more reason for Europe to promote the virtue
of tolerance at home and abroad.

She said an American academic, Richard
Florida, had identified three ingredients as crucial to successful
development in various parts of the world.  These were “technology,
talent and -tolerance!” “What good news for Europe!”, said Mrs Merkel.
Indeed, she added “Europe thrives on innovation, on scientific,
technical, economic and social progress” and “Europe thrives on
curiosity”.  Ultimately, “Europe without its outstanding power of
innovation would not be the Europe that it is today”.

Read the rest here.

Three cities dominate the global market for initial public offerings, accounting for nearly $150 billion in IPOs – London ($51 billion), New York ($46 billion) and Hong Kong’ ($41 billion) -  more than two-thirds of the global market, as this New York Times graphic shows. While the Times’ graphic credits  Hong Kong with the highest dollar volume of any single exchange, it does not take into account the fact that NY and London each have two exchanges which I aggregate in my calculation by city-region.

That’s the percentage of women who are living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950, according to the New York Times.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the
age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried
partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are
living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men
to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

“This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going
back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main
institution that organizes people’s lives,” said Prof. Stephanie
Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary
Families, a nonprofit research group. “Most of these women will marry,
or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult
lives outside marriage.”…

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution,
a research group in Washington, described the shift as “a clear tipping
point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with
greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women.” For
better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of
marriage,” Dr. Frey said. “Younger women understand this better, and
are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with
nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the
institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped
for, growing up in an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ era.”

Read the whole thing here.

Earlier I posted the United Van Lines data on moves into and out of the 50 states.   RFCG’s Amanda Styron used these data to calculate a “Moving Van Index,” basically the ratio of in-movers to out-movers. The top ranked states on the MVI  are:  North Carolina (1.78) and Oregon (1.67). DC ranked 6th (1.38).  The lowest ranked states are:  North Dakota (.52), Michigan (.52), New Jersey (.64), New York (.68), and Indiana (.72). Just five states had index values of 1.5 or above; and just 11 had index values of 1.25 and above.  A spread sheet with original United Van Lines data and Styron’s MVI calculations is here.

I’ve always found university rankings to be wanting.  In research I conducted years back with Wesley Cohen, an economist at Duke University we, concluded that the only objective measure of quality we could find was faculty productivity. Now comes this incredibly helpful tool, the “Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index,” produced by Academic Analytics and financed by the State University of New York at Stonybrook. The Index rates faculty members’ scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country, tracking books,  journal articles, journal citations, awards, honors, and grants received.   One thing is clear: no one university dominates; indeed, it’s surprising what a wide number of universities have leading departments. Have a look here. (Hat tip: Greg Mankiw).

In putting together the syllabus for my PhD course in economic development, I came across these two terrific papers by David Ellerman on Jane Jacobs work. Both are well worth reading. I’ll post the syllabus when it’s done.

David Ellerman, Jane Jacobs on Development

David Ellerman, Jane Jacobs, How Do We Grow

The map is from United Van Lines annual report on state-by-state moves.  While these data are certainly not without bias, the report sheds light on some interesting, if not exactly novel, trends and patterns. North Carolina did best  with 64.0% inbound moves. Michigan on the other hand was the biggest loser with 66.0% outbound moves followed by New Jersey (60.9%),  New York (59.5%),  Indiana (58.2%), Pennsylvania (57.0%) and Ohio (55.8%), and Illinois (55.7%).  Click here for the report or here for the actual state-by-state data. (hat tip: Chris Briem). Boy, it would be great to see the metro-region data. Does anyone have it or know how to get it?

The 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is out which covers entrepreneurial activity and economic development in 42 countries.

The report found substantial declines in early-stage start-up activity in the world’s richest nations. In
the U.S. such entrepreneurial activity fell from 12.4 per cent in 2005 to 10 per cent last
year; in Germany and France it dropped from 5.4 per cent to 4.2 per cent;  while in Ireland it fell from 9.8 per cent to 7.4 per
cent. By
contrast, in China early stage entrepreneurship rose to 16.2 per cent
from 13.7 per cent. India also reported a high rate of entrepreneurial activity.

The full report is here (hat tip: Sandy Maxey).

“Urban planner” takes the no. 5 spot on Fast Company’s list of 2007’s hot jobs.

“From the Hong Kong International
Airport Residential Tower to suburban “McMansion” sprawl, individuals
in residential planning and development can expect a lot of work in the
coming year. Urban Planners must meet the demand for real estate that’s
both decadent and practical. Prefab one-level homes engineered for the
aging baby boomer population are changing the face of suburban America,
and boosting the demand for urban planners.”

Anyone interested in geography and cities is bound to enjoy Worldmapper, a fantastic site created by geographers at the University 9f Shefflield’s Social and Spatial Inequalities Research Group and Mark Newman a physicist at the University of Michigan. The maps are “equal area cartograms, otherwise
known as density-equalizing maps.” P.J. O’Rourke has a lively profile in the Atlantic Monthly’s January-February issue (sub req).