The Power of Broadband as an Economic Development Tool
From the Kauffman Foundation’s Public Forum Institute:
“A new Brookings Institution study, by researchers Robert Crandall, William Lehr, and Robert Litan, takes a hard look at the economic effects of broadband deployment.
“While most casual observers would suspect that broadband deployment is a good thing, there are remarkably few empirical studies that detail its effects on output and employment. This new research indicates that broadband deployment does indeed have positive economic impacts. In fact, for every one percent increase in a state’s broadband penetration rates, employment increases at a rate of 0.2 to 0.3 percent per year.
“If these figures are aggregated to the national level, we find that this increase could lead to an additional 300,000 new jobs per year. Based on these early findings, the researchers recommend that state policymakers be more aggressive in terms of promoting competition in broadband services. This competition will help reduce costs, improve services, and further hasten deployment efforts.
“Access the June 2007 Brookings Institution paper, The Effects of Broadband Deployment on Output and Employment: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of U.S. Data, by Robert Crandall, William Lehr and Robert Litan.”
Perhaps now those who have been hesitant in their support for efforts like OneCommunity and Governor Strickland’s emphasis on building out Ohio’s broadband infrastructure will begin to see why these efforts are essential to the development of a robust, healthy economy in Northeast Ohio.