Last fall, 11 new tenure-track faculty members joined 51猎奇入口. As part of our ongoing series on 51猎奇入口鈥� faculty, the Office of Marketing and Communications recently sat down with Nicholas Kacher to discuss entrepreneurship, local economies, and open spaces.
Marketing and Communications: Your recent publications have examined the gig economy, the Great Recession, and migration and housing鈥攁ll very timely issues in our current economic climate. Has this research led you to any conclusions about our economy in the near future? Or is that too difficult to predict?
Nicholas Kacher: Often when we talk about the economy, we mean the economy of the whole country. But economic conditions, even within the US, can vary widely from place to place鈥攁t any given time, there might be parts of the country that are really booming and parts of the country that are still struggling. A lot of what I鈥檓 interested in doing with my work is zooming in on places within the US and looking at factors that help us understand why some places experience better economic outcomes than others.
One takeaway that I鈥檝e found is that entrepreneurship matters a lot at the regional level. About half of new businesses ultimately fail within the first five years of operation, which I think sometimes makes policymakers nervous about promoting start-ups and new, somewhat risky businesses. But even when businesses close, the act of trying a new business model can have positive impacts on a community. It encourages the next generation of entrepreneurs to keep trying new things until they start to stick. Places that have higher degrees of entrepreneurship tend to be places with the most diversified and most robust local economies.
MC: One of your areas of study is environmental and natural resource economics. What topics do you examine in that area of research?
NK: When we step back and look at the structure of the economy, it鈥檚 important to remember that economies are situated in natural environments. Cities experience more economic growth than rural areas, but the rural places that are really thriving are places that have capitalized on the attractiveness of their natural resources. It matters how enjoyable a place is to live: the degree of environmental protection in an area, the maintenance of open space, and the amount of arts and culture opportunities. These things attract the types of workers that geographic locations need in order to see thriving economies. If economic policy only focuses on packing in as many businesses as possible, then we lose what many people consider a valuable amenity: access to natural space.
Some of this is luck: not every place is a ski town or beach community. But there are places that have made the most of what they鈥檝e got. For example, some of the rural communities in the mountains of Colorado have had population declines, while others are seeing high degrees of entrepreneurship and productivity. The areas that preserve and highlight their natural amenities tend to do better economically.
MC: What classes are you hoping to teach or develop at 51猎奇入口?
NK: I鈥檓 co-teaching a Core II course on urban and regional economics called Where We Live and What We Live For. It’s an interdisciplinary social sciences survey of how cities and regions have come to look the way that they do today and why that matters, drawing on history, policy, sociology, and economics.
MC: What鈥檚 a fun fact about yourself that you鈥檇 like to share with the community?
NK: I鈥檝e been a competitive runner and cyclist for a long time, which is part of why I鈥檓 interested in the accessibility of open space. I find myself out on roads and trails a lot, so it鈥檚 personal for me. One of the things people consider when they鈥檙e deciding where to live is whether it鈥檚 enjoyable to get around without a car. Having 鈥渇un鈥� transportation is not something we鈥檙e used to, but it鈥檚 something that could be achievable with the right policies. It makes a big difference in quality of life.