Economic Value of Early Childhood Education as an Economic Development Tool

Better to spur quality education and care for toddlers than to woo companies with cash, if economic development is the goal, says Art Rolnick, vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Rolnick doesn’t just have an unconventional idea. He has a plan.

“We’re the research guys. You’ve got to think about this as economic development. Here’s a proposal, a market-based proposal,” Rolnick said in an interview this week.
Too many economic development plans using public funds are misused, said Rolnick, who also heads research at the Minneapolis Fed. Instead of generating new economic activity, state and local incentive programs too often simply relocate businesses. From a national perspective, jobs are not created but moved.

That’s a poor use of public money, he said. The biggest economic gains go to the companies; even localized public returns are suspect at best.

By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/11/25/news/mtregional/news08.txt