Mark Muro
Fellow and Policy Director
Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program
Mark Muro, a fellow and the director of policy at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, manages the program's public policy analysis and leads key policy research projects. Mark’s most recent publications include: The New "Cluster Moment": How Regional Innovation Cluster Can Foster the Next Economy and the forthcoming brief Metropolitan Business Plans: A New Approach to Economic Growth, co-authored with Robert Weissbourd. Previous to those releases Muro published: Fiscal Challenges Facing Cities: Implications for Recovery, Implementing ARRA: Innovations in Design in Metropolitan America, Metro Potential in ARRA: An Early Assessment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and MetroPolicy: Shaping a New Federal Partnership for a Metropolitan Nation. Mark was also a co-author with Rob Lang of the 2008 Brookings report, Mountain Megas: America’s Newest Metropolitan Places and a Federal Partnership to Help Them Prosper. Each of these represents a key element of the metro program’s Blueprint for American Prosperity initiative, the policy series and policy development of which Mark has led. Mark is also the author of such recent publications as Reconnecting Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities: Lessons Learned and an Agenda for Renewal; Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and a Sustainable Future; and Back to Prosperity: A Competitive Agenda for Renewing Pennsylvania.
Prior to joining Brookings, Mark was a senior policy analyst at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University. He has also been a staff writer for The Boston Globe and an editorial writer for The Arizona Daily Star. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and a master’s degree in American studies from the University of California, Berkeley.
Mark is also a member of the Citistates Group, a network of journalists, speakers and civic leaders focused on building competitive, equitable and sustainable 21st century metropolitan regions.
Recent Publications
The Case for Growth Centers: How to Spread Tech Innovation Across America
The federal government should take aggressive steps to spur the development of more tech hubs in America’s heartland by identifying promising metro areas and helping them transform into self-sustaining innovation centers.
Going Local: Connecting the National Labs to their Regions for Innovation and Growth
Policy should be reformed to better integrate the national labs with regional economies.
Strengthening Clean Energy Competitiveness
Reauthorizing the American COMPETES Act provides an opportunity for Congress to strengthen U.S. clean energy innovation and competitiveness policies.
Recent Events and Presentations
U.S. Manufacturing Priorities for the Biden Administration and 117th Congress
ITIF, Brookings, and AMCC hosted a special, live discussion with senior White House and Congressional offices as well as leading think tanks for a comprehensive overview of these legislative proposals and their potential to stimulate American manufacturing leadership.
Spreading Tech Hubs to More of America: A Proposal
ITIF and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program presented a proposal for a national competition to select metropolitan areas to receive a decade-long range of robust policy supports, enabling their transition into self-sustaining, globally competitive innovation hubs.
National Competitiveness in the Global Economy: What’s the Plan, Uncle Sam?
In a deeply integrated global economy, with a growing number of goods and services readily tradeable across borders, nations face stiff competition to grow and attract high-value-added, traded-sector industries. Refusing to engage in this competition is not an option- so how can policymakers stem the dangerous decline in U.S. economic competitiveness.
Energy Innovation 2010
ITIF and other leading policy think tanks host a day-long conference to ask the hard questions about energy technology policy and innovation in America.
Is Cap and Trade Enough? Why Reducing Emissions Depends on Technology Innovation
Please join the Brookings Institution, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and the Breakthrough Institute to discuss the need for a explicit innovation policy to address the challenge of global climate change.
