Recent Publications

Wildfires are now an annual concern for many of the state’s residents, particularly in and around the Bay Area. Households in fire-prone areas plan for defensible space and exit strategies in the case of a wildfire, and even those in urban areas prepare for the potential of smoke-laden skies and the health impacts they bring. Now, each wildfire season seems to bring weeks of deadly and dangerous air quality, along with destroyed businesses, homes, neighborhoods, and livelihoods.

With 30,000 manufacturing companies, California is the largest manufacturing state in the nation. Together, those companies support 1.3 million employees; 34% of those workers are people of color, and 31% are women. Most of California’s manufacturing companies are small, with 64% having fewer than 25 employees. Manufacturing companies account for 11% of California’s total economic output. Their activity contributes to a balanced economic structure in the state and provides middle-skilled jobs that offer good incomes and upward mobility for a segment of the workforce.

Unique economic ties link the Bay Area and California with Israel. This report discusses the roots of Israel’s innovation economy, California’s economic footprint in Israel, Israel’s economic presence in California, key technologies where that activity is focused, and possibilities for the future.

As the longest standing PFL program in the nation, the California PFL program provides a unique view into the impacts and effectiveness of PFL legislation. As such, there is a growing body of research examining the first two decades of the program, including the Bay Area Council Economic Institute’s previous report focused on California’s program. Published prior to the most recent expansion of the program, that report presents data on program usage and impacts of the program on California businesses. The research found that take up rates were growing, the program increased employment among new mothers, and the impact to businesses was positive.

The term “Greater Bay Area” is derived from the experience of the San Francisco Bay Area, a multijurisdictional region that is the world’s leading platform for technology and innovation; following that model, China’s Greater Bay Area plan also seeks to make the Southern China region surrounding the Pearl River Delta a global innovation hub.

As the Bay Area’s role as a global technology and innovation center has grown, the scope of its relationship with Mexico has expanded to include technology R&D and an active connection through startups. This presents opportunities to expand the relationship.

The report includes chapters focused on housing and transportation, venture capital and innovation, income inequality, higher education, regional migration, globalization trends, and labor force participation. The chapters provide data points that offer early insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted different aspects of the region and economy in 2020 to help the
region plan for a strong and equitable economic recovery.

As of April 2021, 2 million women have dropped out of the workforce in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic, compared to 1.6 million men. The disproportionately large number of women leaving the workforce reflects how the disruption to daycare centers, schools, and other unmet and unpaid family care needs caused by the pandemic has had a particularly acute impact on working women. This page explores gender inequities in the California workforce, presenting labor force data broken out by gender across race, ethnicity, age, wage level, and occupation to understand how different groups in the state experience gender based workforce inequities.

If there is one certainty over 20 years, it is change. In the Tri-Valley, stakeholders want to be proactive to plan for that change, not allowing it to just occur without strategies in place. The bold ideas in the 2040 Vision will allow the Tri-Valley to not only plan for change, but proactively create change. This vision allows the region to embrace and design the future so the Tri-Valley continues to grow as a diverse economy and as a region where all ships rise with the tide. The five key priorities of the 2040 Vision are purposefully open-ended, as they are not meant to be a roadmap with specific directions, but rather a destination that is accessible via a number of different routes.

The Bay Area’s homelessness crisis was created by policy failures at all levels of government; interventions at all levels of government are needed to solve it. Rather than pursuing a shelter mandate, the Bay Area should use existing but unused tools at its disposal to raise $10 billion in new regional revenue to expand its inventory of emergency shelters and permanent housing. The region should pair this investment with new additional state and federal support for affordable housing and homelessness prevention, especially via proven programs like Project Homekey and Section 8. These investments should be paired with state policy reforms to boost housing production and reduce pressure on low-income renters, and to reduce local powers to halt shelter production. Although the Bay Area is a wealthy region, it cannot solve homelessness by itself.

Bayer’s presence in Berkeley has benefited from a long-standing development agreement with the city, and a renewed agreement would facilitate Bayer’s future development plans over the next 30 years. These expansion plans would result in an increase in employment and new construction at the Berkeley site. This analysis looks at Bayer’s current contributions to the surrounding region. It also projects forward to provide insight on the economic implications of extending the Bayer Development Agreement with the City of Berkeley over the next 30 years.

New data released from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Building Permits Survey show that per million people, California permits fewer housing units per million people than other populous states.