Taking the High Road

Joel RogersUniversity of Wisconsin, COWS

www.cows.org/jrogers@cows.org/608.890.2543

What does “high road” mean?

Wealth – What makes a place rich?Productivity rules: A place’s wealth is finally determined by its productivity – its use of its human, physical, and natural capital, and the ever-elusive Solow residual of “multifactor productivity”

But productivity should be defined correctly: Productivity is a function both of the value ($) of goods and services produced and the efficiency of that production. Productivity should be measured by value per unit of input.

Values – What makes a place worth fighting for?

Shared prosperity: high and rising living standards; with benefits of increased productivity widely shared (through labor compensation, more equitable private wealth, progressive public goods) and fair opportunity to contribute to and receive those shares

Democracy: community of free equals, enjoying equal protection, equal opportunity, equal political power; aka government of … by … for the people”

Sustainability: living today in a way that doesn’t limit future welfare

Unit of analysis – Establishments/firmsWhich industries a place competes/trades in is far less important than how establishments/firms in those industries compete.

1.Barth, Bryson, Davis, and Freeman, “It’s Where You Work: Increases in Earnings Dispersion Across Establishments and Individuals in the U.S.” NBER Working Paper 20447 (2014) http://www.nber.org/papers/w20447. Fully 67.5 percent of increase in earnings since inequality since ’92 explained by establishment differences, across which variance in revenue also increasing in all sectors of the economy.2.Atalay, Hortascu, and Syverson, “Why Do Firms Own Production Chains?” NBER Working Paper 18020 [2012] http://www.nber.org/papers/w18020. Even in vertically integrated firms, upstream supplier establishments ship little inside their firm. Half ship nothing, even at 90 th percentile, shipments only 38%; median is less than 0.1 percent of total value dollar or weight.

High road“High road” denotes a (universally available and scalable) place-based strategy (or family of strategies) to realize these values while increasing wealth under competitive market conditions

Strategy – Use policy, government, and civil society to– Add value (increase productivity, in the sense just defined) – Reduce waste (be maximally efficient and restorative in use of non-

renewable resources)– Capture and share the benefits of doing both, locally– Repeat and extend – learn from and improve on what you just did, and

do more of it. (Or, if you prefer Beckett … “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”)

Choice for establishments/firms

Low RoadCompete on price

High RoadCompete on productivity, which results in , which requires

• Better trained and equipped workers• Continuous improvement/innovation• Approximating “zero waste”• Policy and public goods to support

these things

• Sweated labor, high insecurity• Punitive HR, poisonous LR• Low mobility, high inequality• Little commitment to place• Environmental damage

• Higher income, security, mobility• Reduced environmental damage• Greater firm commitment to place

… but produces

Choice for communities

ExclusionNeglect

Divestment

Poverty Wealth

Connectedness

Isolation

High road

Low road

InclusionCare (stewardship)

Investment

“the wealth of networks”

Can you measure it for establishments/firms?

• Value-added / FTE ≥ 1.5 industry average• Average non-supervisory wage ≥ 3 Federal Minimum Wage• Nonsupervisory worker payroll + benefits ≥ 0.5 total value-

added• Computer use by ≥ 2/3rd of employees• Employee turnover rate < 20%• Etc. etc.

*

*

Can you measure it for communities?

Health, wealth, wages, savings, educational attainment, inequality, quality and presence of public goods, transparency and efficiency of government, level and quality of citizen engagement, etc. etc.

So, why don’t we do it?

Choice determined by …• Competitive surround and assessment of opportunity and risk• Managerial/political leadership (vision and endurance)• Can (and must) be helped along by policy (standards and assists in

meeting them) …

but the U.S. generally doesn’t do this – i.e., doesn’t systematically close off (discourage) the low road or help pave (encourage) the high road, or help workers and firms stuck on the first to get on and roll merrily along the sec

Left to their own devices, most firms and communities don’t take it

Firms …•Aren’t in the business of maximizing social welfare, or even productivity, but profit•Except in exceptional cases, can make as much profit on low road as high•Low road is certainly easier and more familiar•Even if they want to get on the high road, there are transition costs that, at least short-term, may reduce competitiveness, and capital markets are impatient

Communities …•Generally weakly organized, and almost wholly business dominated•Operate in a low-social-wage, competitive federalism, with a lot of doubt about government competence, and a highly polarized political culture populated by very confused citizens – all of which encourages opportunistic behavior and undermines informed collective action•Little help of the right kind, even TA, provided at low-cost from outside

– not a puzzle

Is it feasible?

Adding value, reducing waste, in places

1. Is it possible to increase productivity dramatically?2. Is there a significant amount of waste that we know how to

reduce?3. Does place still matter?

Within-sector variation in productivityAn example from a PBS sample of Midwest metal-stamping (NAICS 332116) establishments

Not related to establishment size

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

20-49

50-99

100-249

250-499

20-49

50-99

100-249 250-499

500+

Valu

e-ad

ded

per F

TE ($

000) 75th Percentile 25th Percentile Median

Large CompaniesSmall Companies Very Large CompaniesEstablishment size

Source: PBS

Mid-quintile ($34,958-$57,967) households

Source: CNT/CHP 2006

Waste in housing and transporation

Source: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/energy/energy_archive/energy_flow_2010/LLNLUSEnergy2010.png

Waste in energy

France

Canada

Sweden

United States

Switzerland

Norway Luxembourg

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000 90,000 100,000GDP per capita

Health Expenditure per capita2011 or most recent year (2010 ppp dollars)

Sorce: OECD Health Data 2012, and OECD iLabrary

Waste in health care

100 US Metros: 75 % of GDP

The world’s not flat, it’s spikyUrban shares of GWP, top 130 cities

Getting started

A starter punchlist1. Map your economy and offer a new deal to employers: “We’ll give you almost

anything to get you on the high road and almost nothing if you want to stay on the low-road; in fact, we’re going to make it harder”

2. Build skills to meet higher value-adding demand; reform education system to be seamless, integrated, modularized, open, lifelong, demand-driven; provide other services to meet higher standards

3. Lower waste and reduce the cost of living by cutting energy, housing, and transportation costs through smarter growth and public goods; increase local savings, ownership, and financing facilities; monetize your commons

4. Reform government to be cleaner, smarter (evidence-based), more accountable, more open-source in problem-solving; with more engaged citizens throughout

5. Pay for it all by progressive taxes on the resulting increased income and wealth and Pigovian taxes on public bads (pollution, sprawl); get prices right and stop wasting money on things that don’t add to wealth and welfare