Name change reflects center's economic focus

August 02, 2006

The Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research is the new name of the Center for Business Research, a research unit of ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business. The center specializes in applied economic and demographic research, with a geographic emphasis on Arizona and the metro Phoenix area.<separator></separator>The center conducts research projects under sponsorship of private businesses, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and other ASU units. In particular, the center administers the Productivity and Prosperity Project: An Analysis of Economic Competitiveness (P3) as well as the office of the university economist, ongoing initiatives begun in 2005 and sponsored by ASU President Michael M. Crow.<separator></separator>Crow says the goal of this research will be to inform policy in the public and private sector.<separator></separator>“Arizona and the Phoenix metropolitan area are experiencing phenomenal development,” Crow says. “The center will examine the factors that influence a region's ability to compete and prosper in today's world.”<separator></separator>The center also will deepen business leaders' and Arizona residents' understanding of the role of economics in daily life, according to Robert Mittelstaedt, dean of the W. P. Carey School of Business.<separator></separator>“Too many of our citizens do not understand the role that economics plays in explaining everything from their broad standard of living to the cost of a bar of soap,” Mittelstaedt says. “We will be better off, as a society and as individuals, if we can help leaders and citizens to understand the interaction between investment decisions and their impact in the public and private sectors.”<separator></separator>Enhancing productivity is the primary means of attaining economic prosperity, according to Dennis Hoffman, university economist and director of the L. William Seidman Research Institute, of which the Center for Competitiveness and Prosperity Research is a part.<separator></separator>