Arkansas Tech Business School Launches Economic Index

The College of Business at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville is launching a new resource for tracking economic trends that promises to examine a wide range of activity statewide and in 16 local communities.

The Arkansas Tech Business Index (ATBI) encompasses a labor index, housing market index, construction index, and retail sales index. The 16 cities include: Little Rock; North Little Rock; Conway; Pine Bluff; El Dorado; Texarkana; Hot Springs; Russellville; Fort Smith; Fayetteville; Springdale; Rogers; Bentonville; Jonesboro; Searcy; and West Memphis.

The release of the ATBI, which will is available online at www.atu.edu/atbi beginning on Wednesday, April 2, provides monthly data from 2009-2013 for sixteen municipalities across Arkansas. The index will be updated on a monthly basis and analysis will be provided each quarter.

“We created this index to better connect the Arkansas Tech College of Business with the state’s business community by offering them a high quality, valuable economic gauge,” said Dr. Ed Bashaw, dean of the Arkansas Tech College of Business and professor of marketing.  “At a cursory level, the viewer of the ATBI will have a summary number to assess a community’s economic conditions. At a deeper level, we give viewers access to the formative data used in the creation of the index for them to better evaluate certain aspects of the index for their community.”

Dr. Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech, developed the instrument for the Arkansas Tech Business Index and included a wide variety of factors in order to represent the complexity of the state’s economy.

“We wanted both supply side and demand side measures,” said Fusaro. “We wanted both consumption and investment. We wanted both contemporary and leading indicators. We wanted to encompass both short-run and long-run decisions.”

The index will use a statewide measurement of 100 for normal activity. For cities performing above 100, they will be doing better than the state average, while cities under the threshold will be deemed underperforming the statewide average.

In the initial rankings of activity, Bentonville at 105.3 was the strongest outperformer of the state average. Searcy at 87.70 was the lowest ranking underperformer.

Users wishing to utilize the ATBI data on a city-by-city basis may determine how a particular community has either grown or retracted over a period of time as well as comparing the economic performance of different cities to each other.

To access the index, click here.