Boulder GDP growth a surprise

Surprise, surprise.

A question I posed at a Boulder Tomorrow candidate forum a couple of weeks ago drew a few blank stares. The question centered on Boulder’s amazing 4 percent growth in gross domestic product during 2010. I wondered what candidates for the Boulder city council would do to encourage economic vitality, so that the momentum wasn’t lost.

GDP growth of 4 percent? In what many still consider to be a global recession? Candidates dutifully answered the question, but I could tell that they – and many in the audience – thought I must have visited one of Boulder’s medicinal marijuana shops. (I have not.)

The fact is, the Boulder metropolitan statistical area – essentially, Boulder County – did indeed record an impressive 4 percent growth in GDP last year. The Boulder County Business Report reported the numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis on our website, Sept. 14.

The Boulder MSA beat the average growth of 2.5 percent among MSAs nationwide. The performance reflected a rebound from a severe 3 percent shrinkage in the economy the prior year.

As Michael Davidson reported Sept. 14, GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure of each area’s gross product, reflecting the value of goods and services produced in a given metropolitan area. Boulder generated $18.3 billion in goods and services in 2010, up from $17.5 billion the prior year, Davidson reported.

Not only did Boulder beat the national average, but it also performed better than every other MSA in Colorado. Denver-Aurora-Broomfield recorded GDP growth of 1.3 percent, while neighboring Fort Collins-Loveland (Larimer County) and Greeley (Weld County) recorded 2.9 percent and 1.9 percent growth, respectively. Colorado Springs recorded 3.5 percent growth.

What drove the growth in Boulder County in 2010? The BEA report gives much of the credit to the information sector, which grew 1.07 percentage points, and professional and business services, up 0.72 percentage points. Information includes categories such as software, telecommunications, data processing and publishing, while professional and business services encompasses professional, scientific and technical services; management of companies and enterprises and administrative and waste services.

One important caveat with the new GDP numbers for metropolitan areas is the lag time. By the time I write this, nine months will have passed since the end of 2010. I doubt that the Boulder County economy has fared quite so well thus far in 2011.

Still, the data is more current than it used to be. When the BEA first began calculating local GDP a few years back, we had to wait more than a year and a half for the data to be compiled. While the current time table is a marked improvement, I’m anxious for the day when we’ll be able to report quarterly GDP at the local level, just as we do nationally.

But the 2010 numbers do illustrate one point: Boulder County has performed better than the rest of the nation, helped in large part by a diverse economy. But one has to go back just one more year, to 2009, to learn that we’re not immune from severe contractions.

Whether 2011 will turn out to be more like 2010 or 2009 is an open question, and one we’ll seek to answer going forward.

Christopher Wood can be reached at 303-440-4950 or via email at cwood@bcbr.com.

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