The School of Public Affairs Research Institute (SOPARI) at SCSU partners with the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State in offering a set of six Minnesota Regional Economic and Business Conditions Reports each quarter. These reports examine past, current, and projected economic and business conditions in each of Minnesota’s six planning areas. With an emphasis on using proprietary business formation data from the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, the authors i) develop a regional index of leading economic indicators, ii) present graphical and tabular series on regional new business formation, iii) use GIS tools to examine topical regional business formation issues, iv) analyze regional labor market data, and v) produce data tables highlighting local/regional/state/national economic performance for each planning area.

Current authors of these reports are SCSU economics professors King Banaian and Rich MacDonald with research assistance provided by SCSU geography professor David Wall, former SCSU graduate student Joe Kucan, and current SCSU graduate student Paul Ryan.