From the Editor

Carol O. Rogers

Executive Editor, Indiana Business Research Center, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Into each issue, a little rain must fall (Longfellow—sorry!). Our authors throw a bit of cold rain on two areas of importance in our state—population growth is slowing and job creation isn’t a given with export growth.

First up is a big question: does growth in exports actually create jobs? The answer is not completely no or completely yes, but it does help to illuminate which industries are more likely to create jobs than not.

Population growth is becoming spotty across the state, with a slowing of overall growth from the previous year. The dreaded “natural decrease” is now occurring in 17 of our 92 counties. What’s that, you ask? Natural relates to births and deaths, so the decrease means that a county is experiencing more deaths than births. No more spoilers on which counties are experiencing this phenomenon—we’ll let you discover it yourself.