Jobs Above Replacement: Womble Carlyle’s Mark Newberg Introduces Sabermetrics-Inspired Approach to Economic Development with the Huffington Post

During the past decade, sabermetrics—the science of advanced statistical analysis—has revolutionized how Major League Baseball organizations build their teams. Chief among these new statistics is WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, which calculates how many wins a player delivers to his team compared to a baseline replacement player.

Womble Carlyle Director of Impact Strategies Mark Newberg asks the question, “What if the same approach could be applied to economic development?” in the Huffington Post. Newberg theorizes that a statistical approach, which he calls the Jobs Above Replacement equation, could be a new, invaluable way to look at job creation.

In Newberg’s approach, economic development officials would calculate how many jobs a project would create, giving additional weight to jobs with good benefits and pay. Other factors, such as how fast the new jobs would be created, the cost per job and how many existing jobs a project saves, would be taken into account. Newberg says the project’s total job growth would need to be measured against a hypothetical baseline of how many jobs would be created if the region or company just remained on its current course.

Click here to read the full article in the Huffington Post.

Mark Newberg is Director of Impact Strategies for Womble Carlyle, where he is helping launch an Impact Economy practice and develop an integrated Impact Team that is dedicated to supporting the growth of businesses and entrepreneurs in the Impact Economy.  Newberg also serves as the Managing Director of Impact Investment Strategies for 5 Stone Green Capital.

Jean Case On The Emergence of Impact Investing

Tech pioneer and philanthropist Jean Case knows a thing or two about the Impact Economy. She and her husband Steve Case, a co-founder of AOL, created the Case Foundation in 1997 to address various social and environmental issues. So it isn't a surprise that she's able to outline in this Forbes column just how hot the Impact Economy is right now.

To support her optimism, Case notes investments from individual heavy-hitters like Bill Gates, Evan Williams and Reid Hoffman helped Change.org raise $25 million late last year. She also points out that major investment firms are targeting the sector, citing the world's largest asset management firm, BlackRock's announcement it is launching BlackRock Impact, an initiative that will allow clients to invest in for-profit ventures with a mission to address social and/or environmental concerns.

Morgan Stanley On Investing In Sustainability...

Lower volatility, competitive returns and the potential to make a positive change in the world. A new report by Morgan Stanley's Institute for Sustainable Investing finds that socially conscious investors might benefit financially from their focus on social or environmental factors.

The report surveyed 10,000 equity mutual funds over the last seven years that focus on sustainable investing approaches. Researchers found these mutual funds, as a group, tended to meet or exceed the median returns of their traditional counterparts. The findings are significant because they highlight the depth, breadth, and quality of sustainable investing options in the public markets .

Mark Newberg is the Director of Impact Strategies for Womble Carlyle and he believes this new study reflects significant advancement within the Impact Economy.

“This report shows the continuation of a trend we've seen in recent years, as the options for quality impact investment expand, and the analytic rationale for impact in corporate decision-making has become increasingly compelling” he said.