Top 5 States Transitioning to the New Economy

And Delaware is number 4 on the list — up from a ranking of 7 in 2007.

The top 5 according to this report are: Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation is the think tank responsible for this effort. As reported by Marketwatch:

The State New Economy Index measures states’ economic structures. Rather than measuring state economic performance or state economic policies, the Index focuses more narrowly on a single question: To what degree does the structure of state economies match the ideal structure of the New Economy?

And:

All the states at the top of the ranking — even those that are not growing rapidly in employment — also show above-average levels of entrepreneurship. Most are at the forefront of the information technology and Internet revolutions, with a large share of their institutions and residents embracing the digital economy. Most have a solid innovation infrastructure that fosters and supports technological innovation, and many have high levels of domestic and foreign immigration of highly mobile, highly skilled knowledge workers coupled with a good quality of life.

Which would mean that the usual metrics associated with manufacturing and construction are not very highly weighted, if at all. I haven’t had a chance to review the report (you can see the entire thing on the ITIF website), but take a good look and tell us your observations. My first question would be how much this innovative technology economy is directly related to our banking industry, rather than being a real standalone part of the economy?