The first of those, which came out in December, looked at a particular part of that economy — our ability to start and grow new businesses. We often talk about how our region needs to create a new economy as we transition from the industrial age to the information age. There are two ways to do that: We can either attract companies from the outside, or we can grow our own. In practice, we want to do both, but we have more control over the latter than the former. If you look at the places most identified with the new economy — say, Silicon Valley and Seattle — they all grew their own companies.

So how are we doing? Not as well as we could.

The December study — by the Ohio consultant TEConomy Partners — found that our region lagged behind peer communities in the number of new businesses being created. It also found that the region was losing college-educated workers, the people most necessary to a technology economy. From 2012 to 2017, the region saw a net loss of 23,974 people with college degrees. By contrast, the peer communities we were benchmarked against — Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dayton, Ohio, and Gainesville, Florida —all gained workers with degrees.

We also need something else and the second study, out last week from the Valleys Innovation Council, looks more deeply at just what that is: Investment capital.

Here’s how all these things tie together: There may be lots of reasons why we’re not growing enough new companies: We have too many educated workers leaving the region; we underperform against our peers in the number of patents being issued here; and a lot of research conducted at local universities doesn’t translate into commercial applications. Those are all hints and clues that pop up in these studies. The other is the lack of investment capital to fund those companies that do get started.