2012 Issue

21 Utah enjoys many economic advantages, but Utah needs economic growth to support expected population growth. Technology jobs are the best source of high-paying jobs. The state has policies promoting economic growth. T HIS ARTICLE SUGGESTS that we need better engagement of the pro- fessional societies to build a “guild” that provides the human skills to promote growth. These are the opinions of the authors, and we may not reflect the opinions of the Utah Engineers Council or necessarily of our sponsoring society, ASHRAE. Keywords – economic policy, economic geography, economic history I. Introduction Our purposes in this short article are: (1) to explain why growing Utah’s technology- based business is an economic necessity, (2) to identify the challenges of growing technology business in Utah; (3) to review Utah’s current policies and (4) to ponder new ideas on how to reach this goal. This article contains opinions of the authors, and these do not reflect the opinions of theUtah Engineers Council board. This article summarizes several spirited dialogs between the Director of Business Development in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (a director with decades of aerospace experience) and a local professional engineer who is active in UEC societies (ASHRAE, ASME and IEEE). We came together with the shared belief that the only suitable approach demands cooperation between industry and government and the greater com- munity, a coalition which leverages the engineering societies of UEC. Together, we hope to make real a claim that “this is the place” for the manufacturing of technology products. Before delving into our discussion, please understand that economic data are neces- sarily post facto. At best, government policy is based on economic empirical data and existing economic theory. Realizing that pursuit of policy faces adverse headwinds due to data collection issues, weakness of economic theory and implementa- tion shortcomings, rational policy makers must remain flexible and attentive. Many scholars and politicians have faced these same challenges with dramatic successes and dismal failures. Our article makes a balanced assessment and is written with humility and hope. II. Economic Theory This is an engineering audience, so it is not sacrilegious to say that the study of large economies, macroeconomics, is a weak science. Scientific method requires that a theory can be tested (by anyone), and that experiment should yield the predicted result (every time) based upon the theory. The perils of the pursuit of sci- ence are well known. 2 Macroeconomics does not lend itself to testing. Instead, economists must study historical events to draw general conclusions. Too often, economic concepts are quoted as if they had become religious dogma. As one might expect, economists understand this dilemma. We will see that this truism is not lost on the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, either. Outdated Ideas A recent book explains this idea in its own title, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us. 3 For example, one of the ideas underpinning globalization is the economic idea known as “Comparative Advantage,” which is an idea that nations benefit by trade with each other on the basis of relative production cost of goods, and, on its face, this conventional theory makes common sense. However, compara- tive advantage is used as justification of closing domestic production in favor of globalization. One simple fact, that this idea of comparative advantage dates Growing Utah’s Economy via Technology Guilds By Daniel N. Donahoe 1 and Marshall N. Wright 2 1 1000 kilometers ® 2 Governor’s Office of Economic Development ECONOMY | continued on page 22