This morning, the paper carried my column critiquing a U.S. News report that Washington was the best state to start a business. A reader wrote to ask: "It seems that whenever one of these listings comes out... that its validity is immediately embraced by those who like what it has to say and attacked by those who don't. In your judgment, are there assessments that can be trusted to tell us something meaningful while transcending political bias?

Here's how I responded:

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I think the only way to sort them is to look at the underlying data. Most of them tell us something meaningful, though often the meanings get blurred in the analysts' attempt to create a pithy lead. US News didn't do much. Just combined two reports, one pretty good assessment of the technology capabilities of states; the other, a shoddier report on the costs of doing business. Neither of them purported to do anything so grand as to identify the "best place to start a business." Generally, the parts are more interesting than the hole. The Small Business Survival Committee piece does a reasonably good job of giving people reliable and valid data on business costs. The New Economy Index is data rich and, to the authors' credit, tells the reader exactly what they are trying to do. But it's difficult to make that into a nifty 500 word story. So we get the overhyped "best places" stuff. People who like the headline don't dig too deep. (Kind of like people who like escargot never wanting to think about snails.) Folks who don't like it have an incentive to dig deep and criticize it.

I wrote a piece for AWB a while ago (Here it is: http://www.awb.org/articles/magazine-sepoct2008/the_competitiveness_agenda_there_s_no_number_one.htm) that touches on the issue. Essentially, I disagree with the whole notion of "best states" rankings for business. Businesses require different factors for success (manufacturing versus biotech, for example). Some businesses are intensely local (restaurants, groceries, newspapers) and their success is much more affected by the local economy than state policies. Others are engaged in interstate competition; for them, state policies matter more. Others rely primarily on access to transportation, markets, or natural resources. The policy environment matters, but is weighted differently. That's why we've never attempted [a comprehensive competitiveness] comparison of Washington with other states. I try to be careful to tell folks what I'm concerned with (taxes, regulation, energy costs) and how it affects businesses here. In the article I linked, I also cite a study by a liberal economist in Iowa that takes a look at the merits of studies by think tanks, academics, and magazines. Unsurprisingly, he likes academic studies best and finds the magazine "studies" - scare quotes intended - to be of the least value. The think tanks are pretty easy to peg. The Tax Foundation, for example, shares the Small Business Survival group's view of income taxes. That doesn't mean their studies are worthless, just that you need to know their biases and calibrate your evaluation of them accordingly. Bottom line: I don't think any single study will provide much guidance. Taken together, they do tell us some important facts about how we stack up.

Thought you might be want to know.