Last Sunday’s Harford Courant featured a full page article by Prof. Carstensen. As a director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis (CCEA), he is frequently asked to testify in Hartford or speak in the media, and this article summarizes his take of the state of the State of Connecticut.

He opines that Connecticut has an economy with a shrinking working age population with declining skills that is typically slow to recover from a recession. From a policy perspective, he argues that the State needs to push the life science sector and address the unusually high energy costs and the inadequate transportation infrastructure. The aging population will also require more services than before. Finally, the State needs to provide a stable business environment with respect to taxes.