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Patrick Barkey

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: My city is bigger than your city, or is it?

Does anyone remember the World Almanac? Perhaps not. But in the Barkey household of many years back, it was a well-worn little book. Especially those pages where populations were listed for every city in the country. That’s where we could proudly look up our own hometown and see where we stood against everyone else. We’re still doing that, of course. The paper books are gone, naturally, replaced by Web pages from the Census Bureau that pop up at the click…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: New data gives economists a new way to gauge state

Ask any economic developer what he or she is expected to produce, and the answer is a single syllable: jobs. Sure, there are a few qualifiers. We want good jobs, which generally means highpaying, secure, or even non-polluting jobs. But high-profile announcements of business expansion or recruitment always lead with the projected effects on employment-often spelled out to the last digit. It’s hard to see anything wrong with that. Job growth is easy to grasp and even if we’re not…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Until Indiana diversifies, economy will struggle

Sure, General Motors Corp. is in trouble, and quite a few Indiana communities are directly in harm’s way. The headlines say it all. Plant closings-above and beyond those already planned-are on the way. GM bonds are rated as junk. Its market share is at an historic low. And it’s discounting just about everything on the lot. For a company that has been the No. 1 automaker in the world for four generations, its recent stumbles have to be humbling. Pressed…

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Government intervention: cure is as bad as disease ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Government intervention: cure is as bad as disease

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS Government intervention: cure is as bad as disease As you get older, you come to appreciate the old adage about doctors: They don’t actually cure you, but they do sometimes let you trade in one ailment for another. That could be said equally for almost every situation where governments intervene in the privatesector economy. The solution to a problem inevitably creates a new problem. And in some cases, the cure is worse-and longer-lived-than the disease. We have come…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: With growth at both ends, job spectrum requires skill

When you study economic statistics for a living, it’s easy to lose perspective on a lot of things. Take the labor market, for instance. In any given month, millions of American workers are hired and fired, promoted, demoted and transferred. Some drop out of the labor force to raise children or to go to school, while others retire altogether or begin new careers. When the smoke clears after all those changes, the statisticians in Indiana and in Washington tally it…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Expect more rate hikes by the Federal Reserve

If the Federal Reserve’s steady diet of interest rate increases is giving you or your business indigestion, I’ve got a suggestion for you-get used to it. The inflation winds in the U.S. economy are whipping up like they haven’t in almost a decade, and it’s up to our central bank to do something about it. We learned a few years ago that rapid advances in technology and globalization didn’t make the national economy recession-proof, as some foolishly boasted. It looks…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: By changing our clocks, Hoosiers show progress

The state of Indiana ended its isolation as a land of never-changing clocks when the Legislature gave its approval to a bill mandating the practice of daylight-saving time that has been the national standard for almost a quarter century. Next April, the question of what time it is in Indiana, from the point of view of the 98 percent of the domestic economy outside our borders, should finally be put to rest. That makes you either very happy or very…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Going behind the numbers to understand price indexes

The joke about economists is that we talk about money but we don’t have any. And when it comes to having power and wealth, the status of those who compile the economic statistics we all consume is usually several notches below even that of the lowly economist. Most are employed by government agencies, after all. And the last time I checked, I didn’t see anyone from the Forbes 100 list on a public payroll. But the numbers these anonymous statisticians…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Pondering the world from an economist’s viewpoint

In case you’ve ever wondered what it is like to look at life through the eyes of an economist, here are some questions to ponder: Has anyone else noticed that public schools these days are in the transportation business, the sports entertainment business, the restaurant business, the health care business, not to mention the day care business? It’s no wonder their jobs are so difficult. To those who decry the risk of diverting Social Security revenue towards personal accounts in…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Revisiting the crystal ball reflects timid predictions

When economists look into the future, what do they see? Many of us reported our visions of the coming year late last fall in annual forecasting presentations. Our Ball State University forecast, like many others, was pretty optimistic about 2005. It foresaw reasonably strong growth for both the U.S. economy and Indiana. But as we start the second quarter, with four more months’ worth of fresh data in hand, is there any reason to change that outlook? It depends on…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Enjoy growth while it lasts, because change is afoot

There is good news for the Indiana economy. Strong spending by businesses on capital goods in the national economy in 2004 translated into the best year for output and hiring we’ve seen in the state economy in more than five years. And it’s showing up in tax revenue as well. On a year-over-year basis, Indiana’s collections from income and sales taxes were up 8.3 percent in the last quarter of 2004, better than the national average and significantly better than…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Revised job-growth figures provide hope for economy

It wasn’t many months ago that Indiana’s leaders faced an unpleasant question: Would the jobs being destroyed by the recession, technological change and global competition ever come back? Today, we know the answer is an emphatic yes. In fact, Indiana’s employment growth over the last 12 months has been stronger than all but 15 other states. If that news had come out six months ago, in the harsh glare of the political campaign, you wouldn’t be reading about it here…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Revised economic data show pronounced growth

Can government really create jobs? That’s a question candidates in the throes of a political campaign, whose rhetoric promises endless prosperity, will sometimes put to economists like me. My answer has always been that there is a lot our leaders can do to destroy jobs, but very little they can do to create them, at least in the short run. But recent events have caused me to reconsider this. Our government, or more accurately, the statistical agencies we employ to…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Job growth, other factors portend stronger economy

While it’s not quite the job creation engine it was in the late 1990s, the newcentury U.S. economy is still one of the brightest stars on the global stage when it comes to growth. Last month’s strong employment gains, on the heels of upward revisions to overall growth and productivity, should put to rest any fears that the national economic expansion will be foundering anytime soon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, payrolls at U.S. business establishments grew by…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Think before demonizing free-trade agreements

E c o n o m i s t s approach the issue of free trade with something resembling religious zeal. Outside of a few high-visibility defectors, such as CNN’s Lou Dobbs and columnist Paul Craig Roberts, we’ve found that the pros of liberalized trade between nations heavily outweigh the cons. That’s hardly the case in the general populace. The Indiana Senate’s recent approval of a meaningless but symbolic call on Congress for a moratorium on free-trade agreements with other…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Michigan’s job pain is felt throughout the Midwest

At the end of last year, the unemployment rate in Michigan was 7.3 percent. That was more than 2 percentage points higher than Indiana’s. No state in the country had a higher jobless rate. That’s not a big story in the Hoosier State. We have our own economic challenges, after all. But perhaps we should be paying a bit more attention. We’re not exactly immune to the forces that are dealing such harsh blows to the Michigan economy right now….

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: New metropolitan areas redefine economic data

This month marks the first important use of the recently redefined Metropolitan Statistical Areas for Indiana. When we receive our first glimpse of state employment information for the new year, the Department of Workforce Development will include three new MSAs in its tables: Anderson, Columbus and Michigan City. And most of the existing metro areas, including Indianapolis, will see significant changes in their geographic composition. In general terms, these changes are easy to explain. We are a mobile population and,…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: GDP figures demonstrate Fed’s rate hikes hit mark

Here’s something to try the next time you find yourself mingling with your friends at a party. Strike up a conversation about GDP. You know, GDP. Gross Domestic Product? It’s the total output of everything we produce in the economy. Oh, well, never mind. But even if it’s generally true that talk of GDP’s ups and downs elicits blank stares, some of us devour the news. That’s because the speed-up and slowdown of overall economic growth can affect the policies…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Convention centers as economic development

It was more than 50 years ago that suburban growth began to explode and central cities haven’t been the same since. Businesses have gradually followed new housing and population growth out to the fringes of one urban area after another over the decades, to the detriment of many a downtown. The trend continues unabated and the central business districts in some large and medium-size cities have yet to recover. Their vibrant, dominant role in economic activity is just a memory,…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Understanding factors in public-sector job growth

There is nothing like a war and a recession to increase the size of government payrolls. Yet the hiring behavior of the public sector in the last four years has been unusual, when compared with previous recessions. The data tell us much of the growth in recent years has come from state and local governments. But they do not tell us why. There has been much stronger job growth in the public sector than in the private sector in the…

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