I completely disagree with anyone who fundamentally doubts the capacity and regenerative power of the Greater Boston and Massachusetts economies.
As I've said before, Massachusetts doesn't have much to do with old school slow moving F500 type companies. Who needs them? It doesn't matter what name is on the shingle or where the board of directors meets (or even what language they speak). What matters is high value creation -- and the ability to create high value from nothing over and over and over again. And it matters that it happens here, right down the street, not in Mumbai, Shenzhen or Hsinchu. And it matters that the whole world knows about that value added and who created it.
There is always a surfeit of "stuff" to worry about and struggle against. But the fact remains: we are
THE per capita entrepreneurial and intellectual center of gravity to this country. Moreover, the region between Boston and Washington D.C. is a dense super-cluster that still moves the economic, political, and intellectual needle for the entire globe.
Now for the numbers and factoids. I apologize for slapping this together and probably misquoting and otherwise mangling the work of others...
Some Massachusetts Indicators:
population:
- ~2% of US population
- ~15% of the size of California's population
income:
- 11th of 50 states for total GSP
- MA income per capita ~$46,000
- US income per capita ~$36,000
venture capital:
- 14% of total US VC funding
- Biotech and software lead MA VC funding
- 1st of 50 in VC contribution as a percentage of worker's earnings
R&D spending:
- 2nd of 50 in R&D intensity (R&D to GSP) behind only New Mexico (home of much gov research)
- 4th of 50 in federal R&D funding (absolute $ terms, keep our % of total population in mind here)
- 3rd of 50 in overall R&D spending (again, absolute $ terms)
- 47% of MA industrial R&D in computer & electronic hardware
- 60% of MA industrial R&D in computer & electronic hardware and computer software & services
employment:
- 240,000 employed by high tech sectors
- 85 of every 1000 MA workers are employed in high tech
- > 300,000 employed by manufacturing, including high tech manufacturing
- 25% of workers work in the innovation economy sectors
education:
- MA graduated more than 1/3 the total number of engineering degrees granted in CA in 2000
- MA graduated more than 1/2 of the CA number in the category of bio-medical engineering
SBIR / STTR awards:
- 2nd of 50 in total $ and #.
- 2x higher than any other state in per capita terms.
- 4x higher than CA in $ and # on per capita basis.
- 25% of phase I awards to private start-ups
- $82 SBIR $s per MA worker vs $13 per worker nationally
patents:
- 1st of 50 in patents per capita
- chance that you (a MA resident) were awarded a patent in 2004: 1 in 1600
startups and high growth sectors:
- 24 spin-out startups per $1 billion spent in MA academia
- 12 spin-out startups per $1 billion spent in US academia
- top public high growth sectors in MA: other: 34%, software/communications: 18%, biotech/pharma: 13%, medical devices: 10%, computer hardware: 10%, industrial: 7%
foreign direct investment:
- 12% of MA manufacturing is foreign owned (i.e. its more valuable to tie up $ in MA manufacturing than it is to deploy that capital in an overseas region)
- 4th of 50 in total inbound FDI (oh, and CA is 20th)
exports:
- 9th of 50 in export earnings
- leading sectors: computer and electronic hardware, chemicals, machinery
New Economy Index 2007:
- 1st of 50, again.
a few industrial clusters you may not have considered where Massachusetts leads:
ocean science & engineering:
- WHOI, MBL, USN Deep Submergence Lab, NOAA, SMAST, MIT ocean engineering program, and dozens of startups clustered in the south east of MA
- > 50% total output exported
- > 3000 private industry jobs (i.e. not counting any of the ~4000 jobs in the organizations named above) with some estimates as high as 18,000 total jobs
- > 50% production in marine instrumentation and equipment
measurement and control instruments:
- 2nd of 50 in production
- 16,000 private sector jobs
- #1 export income sector for MA
- MA exports instruments to Netherlands (#1) and Germany (#3) (this is a 'coals to newcastle' point...)
management consulting:
- Monitor Group, HBSP, BCG, AD Little, Bain lead the sector, but the majority of activity is in startup/spinout, highly focused (e.g. IP strategy, economic forecasting, organizational development, etc.), think tank, and boutique firms
- 2x the average regional employment share (that's the north half of the bos-wash corridor)
plastics:
- 26,000 jobs at over 700 firms
- 2nd highest of 50 in terms of plastics firms concentration
- 12 of 50 in industrial production
contract R&D:
- 3rd of 50 in contract R&D income
- 13.5% of MA R&D expenditures
- ~42,000 total jobs
- ~23% of R&D done in small businesses
- led by national leaders: MITRE, Lincoln Lab, TIAX, Drapier Lab, etc., but majority of activity in small, new and highly focused firms
nontraditional energy:
- 1/3 of Photovoltaic production in MA
- 18 fuel cell development firms
- ~10,000 jobs in clean energy
- Leading R&D led power generation and management firms: American Superconductor, Beacon Power, Solectria, etc.
telecommunications
- >100,000 jobs
- 2nd of 50 in telecom software jobs with > 7% of total US employment
- 1300 equipment manufacturers and software firms
jet aircraft engines
- 2nd of 50 in employment (CT is #1 so some is likely within the Boston PCSA)
- > 11,000 jobs
- 9% of US industrial capacity in sector
and a few industrial clusters you already know about:
- higher education and workforce training
- finance (especially as a global leader in custodianship services and funds)
- document management
- robotics
- biotech
- medical devices
- chemicals and pharma
- healthcare services
- legal services
- packaged software and services
- electronics
- advanced materials and nanotech
- defense systems and services
- tourism
------------END NOTES-------------------------
Some (but not all) of the sources. Sorry they aren't more organized and properly matched and cited.
http://www.massbenchmarks.org/publications/studies/pdf/plastics00.pdf
http://www.bostonchamber.com/policy/lifinal.pdf
http://www.massmac.org/newsline/0406/article05.htm
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/oes/summer01/motn.htm
http://www.aeanet.org/PressRoom/prjj_cs2007_massachusetts.asp
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eoedsub...ts+and+Information&L2=Key+Industries&sid=Eoed
http://www.plasticsindustry.org/industry/facts/ma.pdf
http://www.masstech.org/IS/reports/clusterreport11405.pdf
http://www.neweconomyindex.org/states/1999/part2_page2.html
http://tse.export.gov/
SBIR:
http://www.flcnortheast.org/Content...day/August2004_SBIR_STTR_Workshop_Kispert.pdf
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind06/c4/tt04-02.htm
http://www.tbf.org/indicators2004/t...&crosscutID=325&crosscutName=Competitive Edge
http://www.agiweb.org/gap/cvd/cvd2007/State-factsheets/CVD07Massachusetts.pdf
http://www.kauffman.org/pdf/2007_State_Index.pdf