Adams Bailey

Adams Bailey is a research economist with RTI’s Center for Applied Economics and Strategy. He has 10 years of experience conducting scholarly and policy-oriented at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and regional economic development. He makes creative use of data sources to identify causal relationships within complex systems. He has experience managing large data sets, designing and implementing research protocols, and writing technical reports, academic papers, and persuasive articles for a wide audience. Dr. Bailey’s research focus areas include how regional industries and specializations take form and shape growth in local economies; how innovators proceed from idea to commercialization, with an emphasis on R&D; and how growth in advanced industries impacts equity and inclusion. His current work focuses on supporting and promoting effective place-based economic development. He is also involved in several projects involving innovation and commercialization of advanced technologies, such as studying the barriers faced by NIH SEED program participants attempting to commercialize biotechnology innovation.

Before joining RTI in 2022, Dr. Bailey was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researching business attraction policies, including economic development incentives (EDIs).