After three years at the top, Massachusetts slipped to second place, just behind Utah, according to the most recent annual measure of state competitiveness compiled by the Beacon Hill Institute.

A proposal to establish a Massachusetts Life Science Center would do little to improve the state?s economic competitiveness according to testimony offered by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University today before the Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures and State Assets.

A new study released today by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University (BHI) finds that biases in the measurement of the federal ?prevailing wage? add 22% to the cost of labor on public construction projects and 9.91% to overall construction costs. As a result, taxpayers pay $8.6 billion a year more