Research to date suggests that occupation clusters may be at least as important as industry clusters in driving regional competitive advantage. A nationwide mapping of occupation clusters, with data available for every U.S. county and the capability to aggregate counties to a regional level, serves as a powerful complement to an understanding of industry clusters, the major focus of a previous EDA-funded project conducted by partners in this research team. This paper explains the importance of occupation cluster analysis, how 15 different occupation clusters were developed as part of this study, the results and products from the analysis, and the applications and implications of using occupation cluster analysis at the local and regional levels.

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The impact of broadband access and use continues to transform the socioeconomic landscape placing this twenty-first century infrastructure at the center of current policymaking discourse. Past studies have found a relationship between infrastructure investments and economic productivity. Recent broadband-related studies, however, have focused on general availability or adoption, and do not distinguish which specific aspect of the technology is most associated with productivity. Utilizing crosssectional county-level data from 2017 and spatial econometric models, this research looked into better understanding the impact of multiple broadband indicators on job productivity, including innovative broader measures of digital inclusion. Results indicate that broader metrics focused on adoption or digital distress had a larger positive impact on job productivity in comparison to measures focused on speed or availability. Moreover, these impacts vary across urban and rural settings. Although the relationships identified are not necessarily causal, an alternative matching technique generally supports the results. These findings suggest that the relationship between broadband and economic productivity should be viewed from a larger, more comprehensive socioeconomic perspective. Future research should focus on looking at these effects over time and assess how policies focused on specific broadband characteristics have impacted growth.

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