Project on Regional and Industrial Economics

Arts Economy Initiative

The Arts Economy Initiative is a decade-long project on artists, their livelihoods, the commercial, nonprofit and community organizations that nurture and present their work, and the sector's contributions to regional and local economies. Read more.

Select Arts Economy Initiative publications:

California's Arts and Cultural Ecology
"Nurturing California's Next Generation Arts and Cultural Leaders"
"Creative Placemaking, Full Study"
"Native Artists: Livelihoods, Resources, Space, Gifts"
Find additional publications about arts and cultural development

The Distinctive City: An Occupational Approach

In an era of heightened competition and capital and labor mobility, city and regional leaders seek to build distinctive identities and portfolios of production and consumption activities to hedge against decline in traditional strengths. PRIE is pioneering an occupational approach to economic development strategy and analysis that focuses on worker as well as firm location choices, entrepreneurship, and the consumption sector as key to longer term growth.

Read "Consumption-Driven Urban Development."
Read Glasgow Conversations.

Reining in the Competition for Capital

Regions and localities all over the globe are facing increasingly stiff competition for capital to build new plants and offices and provide jobs.

Finding a workable solution to this dilemma was the focus of 'Reining in Competition for Capital,' a two-day signature study conference held at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School February 27-28, 2004. Read more about the conference, Markusen/Nesse overview, conference papers.

Read the press release for the resultant volume, Reining in the Competition for Capital (2007), published by W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Order the book.

Ongoing PRIE research on business tax incentives includes a case study of film incentives.