Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
With the local approach, the opportunities for effective educational and
training programs would be greater. The firms may start small, and a pre-
dictable expansion in the labor force can be smoothly served over time. The
startup entrepreneurs may even have already attended the local educational
institutions, and the close cooperation needed to develop effective training
programs will be much easier, given that the business firm employs local
people at the start. Additionally, the range of skills that can be usefully pro-
vided through local institutions will be broader and will include business
management skills as well as any needed technical skills. The successful
manager of a startup company may even end up teaching a course at the
local community college, or acting as a consultant to another community
seeking to replicate the success. Who knows?
10. Trade Missions
Ah, yes, trade missions. Some of them occur to open up markets and thus sell
more of the products a state or region already produces. Others are to talk to
corporations that are potentially willing to locate in the area. Conventionally,
it is thought that the more far-flung the trip, the better. An envoy to California
might not attract much attention, but a trip to China or the European Union
should
really
jump-start the economy.
There is something a bit pathetic about the whole premise. It says, “We
can't stimulate our own economy. We don't have the money or the skills.
Please, come save us
.” In effect, it is an invitation to offer all the features just
discussed in the first nine points, whereby you are asking them to “pick your
pocket.” If the goal is to attract new firms, rest assured those companies are
playing one community against another, and all the resources given up to
land them represent a particularly cynical form of a zero-sum game.
To be sure, regions have occasionally succeeded in generating more sales
of certain products, where the area is particularly good at or suited for some-
thing. Even then, in this era of strident globalization, some place in the world
is often quick to ramp up production and seek to undersell whatever prod-
ucts the trade mission addressed, primarily through much lower labor costs.
And on the general issue of opening up markets (e.g., China's 1.3 billion peo-
ple), it is telling that after all the efforts of the last two or three decades to lib-
eralize trade, we now import more than 10 times the goods from China than
we export to them. How is the agreement, sponsored by the World Trade
Organization, working out for you?
Summarizing the Local Approach
Clearly, none of this is an issue with a local strategy. There is no need to
induce a firm to locate because it is a startup, and its key managerial people,
as well as its labor force, are already local residents committed to the eco-
nomic health of their community. What is more, they are already invested in
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