A state-commissioned report endorses the state’s regional economic development approach, aligning with districts established under former Gov. Eric Holcomb.
The Regional Economic and Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI, allocates federal and state dollars to boost public-private projects seeking to improve Hoosiers’ quality of life. Some projects focused on housing or transportation while others funded parks or community centers.
Earlier this year, Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order ordering an assessment of economic development regions in the state by the year’s end — and researchers with the Indiana University Kelley School of Business submitted their report on Aug. 15. Braun publicized the 12-page document on Thursday.
“This report proves what we’ve seen on the ground: Indiana’s regions are strong, well-defined, and ready to lead. The 15 READI regions were built by local leaders, tested through real collaboration, and now validated by independent research. By aligning the state around this framework, we remove confusion, cut costs, and give Hoosiers one clear plan forward,” Braun said in a release.
Though not the state’s first stab at a regional economic development approach, READI first launched in 2021 with $500 million. That round was so popular — the overseeing Indiana Economic Development Corporations had to process $1.5 billion in requests across 800 projects — that lawmakers approved another $500 million in 2023.
The first-round awards were dispersed slowly, mostly due to requirements tied to the federal dollars. But the second round of state dollars moved more quickly. During a tight budget session, legislators declined to include a third round of funding in the 2025 budget.
The first round involved 17 districts. For the second READI round, local units of government organized into 15 regions, the base of the IU analysis. Researchers Phil Powell and Tim Slaper, with the Indiana Business Research Center found that, “READI regions provide a socially efficient and empirically sound foundation for regional policy, satisfying the goals of (Braun’s) executive order.”
“They capture economic activity nearly as effectively as state-drawn regions, but with the added advantage of trust and collaboration already built among local leaders. That gives Indiana a durable framework to deliver economic and workforce development,” said Powell, the executive director of the Indiana Business Research Center, in the release.
Indiana Secretary of Commerce David Adams likewise praised the paper and its conclusion.
“This report confirms that Indiana’s regional approach is working. With READI regions now validated as the economic planning framework, we can focus on strategy — empowering regions to grow population, wages, and opportunity with one clear map,” he said.
More from the study
Other agencies use different boundaries for their various missions, including within the IEDC. As such, the study explored whether the regional economic development approach under READI could be translated into other workforce and economic development activities.
The current 12 Economic Growth Regions used by some agencies were organized under former Gov. Mitch Daniels without the same input from local governments. Powell and Slaper compared the READI districts with those regions as well as Metropolitan Statistical Areas used by the federal government.
Notably the Metropolitan Statistical Areas are grouped across state boundaries, meaning that portions of Indiana belong to regions centered around Chicago, Louisville and Cincinnati.
Intergovernmental cooperation makes READI regions “a socially efficient choice,” research concluded, though that is weakest in southern Indiana. The nine-county Economic Growth Region containing Evansville, for example, is split between three different READI regions with roughly five noncontiguous counties lumped into one region. The paper cautions that special consideration should be given to this southwestern corner of the state when granting project dollars to ensure cohesiveness.
However, the three different groupings of counties are relatively comparable, with all having overall tightness scores between 0.868 and 0.891 on a 0-1 scale.
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