Stephan Goetz
Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development
The Pennsylvania State University
7 Armsby Bldg.
University Park PA 16802
(814) 863-4656, (814) 863-0586 fax
sgoetz@psu.edu

In order to craft effective economic development strategies, it is essential to understand the current state of the local economy, including its relative strengths and weaknesses. To learn more about the local economy, clients are encouraged to conduct a detailed study of its current and historical performance.

These tools are designed to help address a number of important questions.

• What are the current employment conditions in the community?
• What parts of the local economy have been growing? Which industries have been declining?
• How does the local economy compare to other nearby economies? The state?
• What are the factors leading to local employment growth?
• How do we identify new opportunities?

We offer these tools to help a community get started in examining important economic trends in your community. The methods are flexible and can be used on a variety of economic indicators, including employment and unemployment, income, poverty rates and housing. The tools can use secondary data, readily available from sources such as the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The analysis should help a variety of local efforts, including industry development, grant writing and visioning.

PowerPoint Presentation (PDF format, 850 kb)