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<br />The Brookings study concludes, "It is difficult for public policy to create new clusters <br />deliberately. Instead, policymakers and practitioners should promote and maintain the <br />economic conditions that enable new clusters to emerge. Such an environment, for example, <br />might support knowledge creation, entrepreneurship, new firm formation, and the <br />availability of capital." <br /> <br />The report highlights the role the public sector can play in cluster development by <br />microfoundation: <br /> <br />. Labor Market Pooling: labor market information, specialized training <br />. Supplier Specialization: brokering, recruitin~ en.treprelleurship, credit <br />· Knowledge-spillovers: networking, public s,,:!ctor research.a,nd development support <br />. Entrepreneurship: assistance for startups, spin-offs <br />· Lock-In: work to extend, refine, and r~,Fombine existing distinctive specializations <br />. Culture: acknowledge and support cluster organization <br />· Local Demand: aggregate and strengthen local demand. <br /> <br />Application of Industry Cluster Analysis to La Porte <br />To assess the strength of a cluster in a regional ecQngmy, the location factors are calculated <br />by comparing the c1usler'sshare of totallo<;al empl9ym~nt to the cluster's national share. <br />This quotient will,Yle~a a value generally between 0.00 and 1:00, where 1.00 demonstrates an <br />equal share perCeT!~Clge betweeg the local and national economies. Cluster location factors <br />greater than 2.00 indic<!t~ a st~9'lg cluster agglo'l1eration, while those less than 0.50 indicate <br />extremely wea.~ <;Justers: <br /> <br />Thepiggest challenge for performing a cluster analysis on La Porte is data availability. <br />Clusters are typically defined using 6-~igit NAICS (a business classification system). Given the <br />employment ,base size of La Porte and linkages to neighboring cities, detailed data is not <br />readily availablel?ecause government agencies "suppress" data to protect the confidentiality <br />of the businesses. For example, detailed employment and payroll data for the petrochemical <br />sector is not released for ta'Porte because it might reveal specific information about local <br />firms. Therefore, TXP performed a cluster analysis using location quotients at the major <br />NAICS level. <br /> <br />Ci;~f~~m~;~~,T~~~~~E~~~~rT1i~&D~rT1~;~~~hi~ ~~~~~~rT1~~tl.J~~u~~;()()9C1 <br />