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Section 3: State’s Role in Economic Development
The third section of the questionnaire is closely related to the previous section and focuses on the state’s performance as an economic development catalyst. Please note that several of the questions are reworded versions of 2007 questions and thus direct year-to-year comparisons are sometimes problematic.
The first question of this section asks respondents about their perceptions of the availability of public and private financial resources to help businesses succeed (see Figure 8). Please note that respondents were provided with some clarification of what is meant by public and private resources.
All three potential funding sources are rated near the midpoint of the seven-point scale, indicating that respondents are neither especially enthusiastic nor especially negative about the availability of funding resources. Respondents agree slightly that public funding resources, both inside and outside Indiana, are "sufficient," and disagree slightly that private funding resources are "sufficient." Interestingly, in-state public funding resources are not seen to be as sufficient as out-of-state public funding resources.
The next question of this section simply asks respondents to rate the state’s effectiveness in encouraging business growth, attracting business to the state, and retaining business in the state. Results from this question appear in Figure 9.
Respondents perceive the state to be somewhat effective in attracting business to the state, somewhat less effective in encouraging business growth, and even less effective in retaining business in the state (although the difference between these last two is not statistically significant). About 65% of the respondents rated "attract business to the state" above the midpoint of "4," while 50% or fewer rated the other two items above "4." Few rated the state a "1" or a "7" on any item, indicating respondents do not have especially strong feeling about this issue.
There are very small, but statistically significant, negative correlations between the likelihood of relocating outside Indiana from Question 2 and both "retain business in the state" and "encourage business growth." This means that the lower a respondent rates the effectiveness of state government in retaining business or encouraging business growth, the more likely the respondent is to report plans to relocate outside Indiana. This relationship was not present in the 2007 data.
Responses to these items are not related to plans to add or reduce jobs. See Figure 2.
The final question in this section asks respondents to rate the importance of several public policy issues for Indiana’s economic development. Summary results are presented in Figure 10.
Quality of life issues top the list of areas critical to Indiana’s future economic development, though the ordering of these issues is different than it was in 2007. As was the case last year, "improve public education" is clearly the number one issue. In fact, 59% rate "improve public education" a "7," while only 33% give this rating to the second most critical issue, "have affordable cost of living." Section 5 addresses education in depth. "Improve health care system" dropped from second to being tied for third on this list. "Reduce crime rate" remained stable since 2007.
Next on the list of issues are "improve public transportation," "increase foreign trade," and "develop alternative energy sources." Last year, there was no difference in the rating for "improve public transportation" between those who live in central Indiana versus those living outside central Indiana. This year, however, those in central Indiana rate "improve public transportation" significantly higher than those living elsewhere. Perhaps fuel cost increases and resulting discussion about mass transit around Indianapolis have had a disproportionate impact on central Indiana executives.
Despite the continuing fossil fuel debate, "develop alternative energy sources" has dropped significantly from the 2007 survey. While this decrease is consistent with the drop noted in Figure 2, it is still surprising given the pattern of responses to other questions in the survey.
The lower-range cluster of issues includes "create cultural attractions," "increase workforce diversity," and "have professional sports," though it should be noted that even these three issues are rated above the scale midpoint. While these three issues seem to receive attention in the popular press, they are perceived as being least critical of the issues presented. Two of these, professional sports and cultural attractions, have been identified as being important for attracting a talented workforce to an area so it may be a bit surprising to see them ranked where they are. Workforce diversity is one of the key areas addressed in the next section.
