From the Editor
Executive Editor, Indiana Business Research Center, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Innovation and work are complementary themes in our summer issue. This isn’t surprising, since both were authored by Tim Slaper, once an economist on the Joint Economic Committee for Congress and now happily for Indiana, economist and director of research for the IBRC in the Kelley School of Business. Tim tackles labor force churn and how it can be measured so that regions can hone in on their strengths and weaknesses.
An important complement to regional innovation is human capital (aka people with skills, training and education). Human capital can be measured by the types of occupations held, but the standardized and coded set of more than 1,000 occupation job titles doesn’t really cut it when a region needs to identify significant skills surpluses or gaps in relation to a region’s ability to innovate or desires to attract innovative industries or entrepreneurs. A new clustering of occupations has resulted in 34 clusters that allow a view of regional (or statewide) human capital and allows for easy translation to industry needs.
