Bartholomew County is home to the fifth fastest-growing local economy in the country, according to 2011 gross domestic product (GDP) data released February 22 by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Affairs.
Everyone who lives in the county and throughout the southeastern Indiana area can check the growth rates on the Columbus economic dashboard, thanks to the work of Kayla Freeman, a junior at Indiana University-Purdue University Columbus (IUPUC) who maintains the data.
Freeman, a finance major at IUPUC from Westport, studies finance as part of the Indiana University undergraduate business program in Columbus.
She notes that typically only state and national economic data get much attention from news outlets. “In a very real way, however, local numbers are the ones that tell average citizens what we’re experiencing in our own communities every day,” Freeman said.
The most recent data on local economic growth shows that only four other metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. had faster annual GDP growth in 2011 than Columbus. With a 7.8 percent increase over 2010 GDP, Columbus was also the fastest growing local economy in Indiana.
A monthly snapshot of employment, labor, and other economic data, the dashboard combines important economic data from several different sources into a single, current snapshot of the Columbus climate.
“The value is the compilation of existing information in a way that local residents can quickly grasp,” finds Michael Oakes, MBA director and senior lecturer in finance. Oakes is Freeman’s finance instructor and tapped her data management skills to maintain the dashboard.
In addition to the dashboard, which focuses on the Columbus metropolitan statistical area (MSA), Freeman maintains a table of Economic Growth Region 9 (EGR 9) indicators.” The ninth region consists of ten counties mostly south and east of Bartholomew County.
Columbus stock index
An outcome of another finance class project is a Columbus area stock index or CASI.
The CASI index was created by IUPUC seniors Randy Pangburn and Robert Simpson, who turned a research assignment into an opportunity to apply their knowledge of indexing to stocks of companies that have a significant local impact.
The index consists of 22 stocks and is weighted based on price and market capitalization. Cummins Inc. is one, as is Hillenbrand and Hill-Rom. Also included, however, are stocks of companies that, while not originating in the region, have business operations in Bartholomew County with a significant impact on the local economy. Those include Wal-Mart Stores, First Financial Bancorp, Fastenal, and Kroger.
Pangburn, who is from Franklin, reports the fiscal health of these companies matters to many in Columbus and the surrounding region. “If Kroger’s business fails, for example, then our lives are impacted in a real way,” Pangburn said.
Added Simpson, of Trafalgar, “CASI enables average citizens to gauge the health of the local environment and compare it to broad indexes, such as the S&P 500 and Dow Jones.”
Both Pangburn and Simpson were pleased to find a “strong positive correlation” between their index and the S&P 500 throughout the most recent recession and recovery.
“Our findings might suggest the increased globalization of our local economy tracks well what is happening overall in the U.S.,” Pangburn added.
Both the EGR 9 indicators and CASI are outcomes of projects used inside business classrooms at IUPUC to enhance student learning.
“These types of projects provide meaningful context for student learning,” Oakes said.“Without that context, student outcomes can be diminished by the absence of any relevance between key concepts and the everyday world.”
Pangburn noted that he and Simpson gathered, organized, and calculated “tens of thousands of data points.” At times, the work was nearly overwhelming. “There was real pressure to ensure the integrity of the data. And this involved a lot of teamwork and several very late nights.”
For Freeman, maintaining the dashboard and indicators hones her spreadsheet skills. She sees her work as directly related the small university experience provided. “The ability for close collaboration with faculty, staff, and my peers is one of the reasons I chose IUPUC.”
For information about the EGR 9 and CASI projects, contact Michael Oakes at 812.348.7263 or mjoakes@iupuc.edu. For more information about the Division of Business undergraduate and graduate programs, visit www.iupuc.edu/acade,ocs/divisions-programs/business.