Recent Publications

The relationship between the Bay Area and Korea operates at multiple levels—trade, investment capital, talent circulation, R&D collaboration, and startup networks. Across each dimension, the trajectory is one of deepening ties. Several structural features distinguish this connection and position it for further growth.

The Bay Area cannot afford to treat multilingual skills as an afterthought. Building intentional talent pipelines, closing the compensation gap, and aligning workforce development systems with employer needs are essential to the region’s economic competitiveness.

The Bay Area has the assets in place to become a global quantum leader. The region has built the nation’s deepest concentration of quantum research, hardware talent, and venture capital.7 That concentration is not an accident. It grew from decades of federal research investment and the microelectronics and advanced-manufacturing economy that built Silicon Valley. Quantum is, in effect, a new growth from long-cultivated ground. This new field, however, draws on infrastructure, talent pipelines, and supply chains built for an earlier IT industry, and as it matures it requires support and its own organizing framework. The opportunity is to give quantum a dedicated foundation, so the region’s research strength can translate into commercial scale, a deep regional workforce, and lasting economic vibrancy.

Written for employers, the report is grounded in 35 in-depth interviews with employers and leading ecosystem stakeholders, including intermediaries, community college leaders, and policy experts. Combined with a literature review, state data, original research, and field visits to Zurich and Colorado, it identifies the value California employers are realizing from apprenticeship investments, the program design choices that produce the strongest results, and the barriers limiting broader employer adoption.

Across the entire Bay Area region, the three-event series produced approximately $245.1 million of total economic output – which includes direct attendee and APE operational spending, as well as their multiplier effects – generated $110.4 million in wages and income, supported roughly 1,272 full-time-equivalent jobs, and produced $32.5 million in state, local, and federal tax receipts

The differentiating factor for San Francisco’s slow recovery is its tax structure. While San Francisco has always had high business tax rates compared to peer jurisdictions, the pandemic and subsequent contraction in tech jobs have caused many firms to take a much closer look at their cost structures and to reconsider their real estate footprints. This is especially true amongst large, multi-national firms that have many choices for where they invest in human capital. While San Francisco maintains advantages for its innovation ecosystem and world-class tech talent pool, it is not competitive when it comes to business taxes.

This conversation took place at a forum organized by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute in the Winter of 2025 on how the arts and technology meet in the San Francisco Bay Area, and how their interaction enables growth and creativity.

This report, published in March 2026 and conducted by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute in partnership with the San Francisco Foundation, examines the economic role of undocumented immigrants in the Bay Area and the potential impacts of increased immigration enforcement. We quantify undocumented workers’ contributions to key industries, tax revenues, and household incomes, while assessing how enforcement is already affecting business activity, labor supply, and regional stability.

ADUs are homes located on the same lot as an existing primary residence and may be either attached to or detached from the main structure. State law allows one ADU on almost every lot in California, and some cities, like the City of Sacramento, allow more than the state minimum. As California seeks solutions to its housing crisis, ADUs have emerged as one of the most effective strategies – particularly for adding housing in single-family neighborhoods.

This report presents estimates of the economic and fiscal impacts of two large-scale development proposals in Solano County: the Suisun Expansion Plan, which includes the Solano Foundry, and the Solano Shipyard. Together, these investments in the economies of Solano County and the State of California would be unprecedented in recent history and would support hundreds of thousands of new jobs across the state. Importantly, both proposals target job creation in manufacturing – a key sector for middle-wage jobs – which would directly address stagnation in this sector. California has not produced any net new jobs in manufacturing since 2010, even as other states have attracted significant amounts of manufacturing investment and employment. Critical to unlocking these new manufacturing jobs are the new homes that are part of the Suisun Expansion Plan, which will ease home price pressure for California families and provide new housing options to Solano County residents and workers.

One of the key developments impacting the world economy in recent years is the reconfiguration of global supply chains. This shift began as an outgrowth of geopolitical tensions between the United States and China but has expanded as the second Trump administration has increased tariffs on a broad range of U.S. trading partners. Pandemic restrictions, particularly in China, also induced many companies to diversify their sourcing.
Changing calculations of risk and competitiveness are influencing corporate decisions, as businesses are placing growing importance not only on cost but on rising trade barriers, security, and supply chain diversification. A key question as U.S. and other businesses make long-term trade and investment decisions is what these new patterns will look like.

The Sonoma County Economic Outlook Report, a collaboration between the Bay Area Economic Institute and the Sonoma County Economic Development Collaborative, provides a quarterly snapshot of how the county’s economy is performing, including key strengths and challenges. The report examines employment, income, migration, industry trends, and economic output to assess current and future economic conditions.