News Alert: race track is important!

My easiest grad school course was one called Economic Research Methods. It was so easy, I'm not sure I even bothered buying the text books for it -- a holdover trick from my undergrad days.

Surprisingly, though, I actually got something out of it. In this case, it was the retained knowledge of two key facts in regard to social science research:

1) You can pretty much make any poll or survey conclude anything you want it to conclude.

2) Economic impact studies are useless.

The second one comes to light this morning upon reading of a study concluding that the thoroughbred race track at Saratoga has a $213,700,000 impact on the Capital Region economy each year. Impressive, is it not? I wonder if they're counting my $300 annual contribution?

Having actually been involved in the preparation of these types of reports in a former life (yes, I shamefully admit such), I possess first hand knowledge of the various formulas, math models, input-output tables, multiplier effects and on and on and on that are utilized for coming up with a magic $$$ number that is placed front and center in the Executive Summary of these things. (Trust me: the Executive Summary is all that gets read by the recipients. ) And I can report that this process is not so much a science as one normnally defines the word science.

The fact is, unless you somehow had the magic ability to trace the path of each and every dollar bill involved (did someone say RFID chips?), one is taking a shot in the twlight with any attempt to put a hard figure on the concept of 'economic impact'. You'd be better off trying to put a dollar value on the concept of love.

But, for some reason the Saratoga County IDA felt a need to come up with such a figure, and for that privilege the county taxpayers are out $60,000. Does it really make a difference in the County's future policymaking if the number had been $100million, or $500million or $3billion? They would have been equally served by being told that the economic impact of the race track "is really BIG!" For that report, I would have only charged them $25.

My advice the next time you are presented a news piece of an economic impact analysis of a shopping plaza, community center, office tower or chip fab: turn the page to the next story.

Now, I just hope this doesn't get me tossed out of The Club --- or forces me to return the sheepskin....