While some determinants
of competitiveness are national in scope or the
result of national policies, many are regional
and local. Such things as the quantity and quality
of specialized skills, infrastructure, and technology,
and the presence of clusters vary markedly across
regions. This leads to substantial differences
in prosperity among states and regions within
a nation. States and cities need economic strategies
not just nations.
The Institute's Cluster
Mapping Project uses statistical techniques
to profile the performance over time of regional
economies in the United States, with a special
focus on clusters. Clusters are geographically
concentrated groups of interconnected companies,
universities, and related institutions that arise
out of linkages or externalities across industries.
Economic profiles
of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia
based on this approach were prepared for the National
Governors Association's Initiative “State
Leadership in the Global Economy”.
The
Council on Competitiveness sets an action
agenda to drive U.S. economic competitiveness
and leadership in world markets in order to raise
the standard of living for all Americans. Its
focus is on strengthening U.S. innovation, upgrading
the workforce, and benchmarking national economic
performance. Working with Professor Porter and
the Institute, the Council has undertaken
an initiative to examine how clusters form,
why they are critical to a region's economic future,
and how regional stakeholders can help its clusters
thrive.
Publications
“Regions
and the New Economics of Competition”
Michael E. Porter Global City-Regions
(A.J. Scott, ed.)
Oxford: Oxford University
Press
2001
“Competitive
Advantage, Agglomeration Economies, and Regional
Policy”
Michael E. Porter International Regional Science
Review 19, nos. 1 & 2
Regional Research
Institute, West Virginia University
1996
Clusters
of Innovation Initiative Reports Michael E. Porter, The Council on
Competitiveness,
Monitor Group, On The Frontier
December 2001
Regional economies are the building blocks of U.S.
competitiveness. The nation’s ability to produce
high-value products and services depends on the
creation and strengthening of regional clusters of
industries that become hubs of innovation.
Understanding is growing about how these clusters
enhance productivity and spur innovation by bringing
together technology, information, specialized
talent, competing companies, academic institutions,
and other organizations. Close proximity, and the
accompanying tight linkages, yield better market
insights, more refined research agendas, larger
pools of specialized talent, and faster deployment
of new knowledge.
Utilizing a unique database developed at the
Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the
Harvard Business School, we are now able to
systematically measure the relative strength of
regional economies and their clusters and track
their economic and innovation performance over time.
In addition, a team consisting of individuals at
Monitor Group and its affiliate ontheFRONTIER, the
Council on Competitiveness, and the Institute have
conducted surveys, in-depth interviews, and
strategic analyses in order to assess the strengths
and challenges of five pilot regions.
Initiative
for a Competitive Milwaukee September 2003
Includes a 60 page report outlining the Cluster Action Plans and Business Environment
Strategies for the Initiative.
New
Jersey Life Science Super-Cluster Initiative (pdf)
Michael E. Porter and Monitor Group
February 2003
Report prepared for Prosperity New
Jersey. The study assessed the current competitive position of the
Life Science super-cluster in New Jersey; identified its key strengths and
weaknesses, challenges and opportunities; and developed an action agenda that is
being used as a blueprint to improve the cluster's competitive position.
The
State of Connecticut: Strategy for Economic Development Describes the history of Connecticut's economy, its competitive
challenges in the 1990s, and the steps taken to develop an economic plan for the
state. A prominent issue is the competitive position of Connecticut's industry
clusters and the efforts to create a formal cluster development process
involving state government, the private sector, and universities. Teaching
Purpose: Course on competitiveness and economic development. Focus is on
regional economies.
Recommended Links
Institute for
Competitiveness & Prosperity Our partner institute in Canada, ICAP, has a research agenda focusing on
deepening public understanding of macro and microeconomic factors behind
Ontario's economic progress. ICAP has assembled a set of
Canadian Cluster
Data based on the Institute's cluster model. Cluster data is available
by province and metropolitan area.
Cluster
Mapping Project
The Institute's Cluster
Mapping Project (CMP) tool synthesizes vast
amounts of changing economic data and measures of innovation for every region in
the U.S. to produce detailed profiles of the overall performance of regions and
the strengths and weaknesses of the regions' clusters of industries.
The CMP is an outgrowth of research at the Institute
for Strategy and Competitiveness aimed at finding objective, quantitative
measures to compare regional economies over time and to understand the critical
drivers of their prosperity. Defining clusters using consistently based
statistical methods, and comparing cluster positions across regions, allows a
more detailed understanding of the composition of regional economies and their
competitive position.
For any region in the U.S., the CMP can compare
overall economic and patenting performance to other regions, identify the most
important clusters in the economy, and measure their relative performance over
time. The CMP data provides a way to understand the underlying drivers of a
region's mix of jobs, relative wages, employment growth, formation of new firms,
and patenting performance.
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