Economy

One job out of every 40 in the state owes its existence to the life sciences industry.

Georgia’s Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP) sponsors an annual study that estimates the economic impact of college- or university-related spending. The statewide economic impact of the University System of Georgia’s 35 institutions in fiscal year 2010 was $12.6 billion in…

Although Athens was hit hard by the Great Recession, recovery is ongoing. The community will see 1.1 percent job growth this year, benefiting from expected growth in healthcare, an expanded engineering program at UGA and an undersized construction sector. The…

Macon will see 1.3 percent job growth in 2011, and Warner Robins will see about 1.2 percent. Those rates of increase are about the same as I expect for both the state and the nation. Several of the economic development…

Market conditions will improve for Georgia’s financial institutions, but regulatory changes will create some new challenges. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act creates new regulators, extends regulations into new areas, provides new protections and gives regulators new abilities…

Retail growth sales should be sustained by gradual improvements in the labor market this year. Even small increases in jobs will give more people the confidence and the wherewithal to spend slightly more for retail items. Personal income growth is…

The 2011 Georgia forecast calls for the inflation-adjusted GDP to increase by 2.3 percent, a significant improvement over the 1 percent increase estimated for 2010. The annual percentage gain in the state’s GDP this year will essentially match that of…

The economic recovery that began in the second half of 2009 will be sustained, but the rate of U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth will be lower in 2011 than in 2010. The lower growth rate reflects waning federal fiscal…

Earlier this decade, Georgia’s information industry took a big hit from the collapse of the technology bubble. Although the industry was not the epicenter of the “Great Recession,” spending for information services declined, further intensifying the industry’s ongoing job losses.…

The most worrisome tail risk to the overall economy is the increased number of defaults on home mortgages. We see homeowners who are able to make their mortgage payments simply opt to walk away. According to CoreLogic, nearly 29 percent…