Art.Woolf

The Atlantica project is examining the International Northeast as one interconnected economic zone. As part of this multi-year research initiative, AIMS is releasing Economic Development in Vermont: Making Lemons out of Lemonade? by Art Woolf, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Vermont. The paper, based on a speech by Professor Woolf, is remarkable for Atlantic Canadians in that its themes are ones that this region is all too familiar with. In spite of what should be some comparative economic strengths (such as the high level of education of its people, and high levels of education spending), the state of Vermont has been complacent in the face of its economic challenges and has allowed poor quality government to become an almost insurmountable obstacle to growth. Yet as Professor Woolf also notes, just across the Connecticut River, in New Hampshire, many of these same challenges have been met and largely mastered.