Bentonville holds the No. 1 position in the Arkansas Tech Business Index following the compilation of data for February 2016.
Bentonville completed the month with a rating of 105.67, placing it just ahead of neighboring northwest Arkansas municipalities Rogers (2nd, 105.05), Fayetteville (3rd, 104.09) and Springdale (4th, 103.60).
February 2016 marks the ninth time in the 26-month history of the ATBI that Bentonville has completed a month atop the index.
A project created by the Arkansas Tech University College of Business and sponsored by Arvest Bank, the Arkansas Tech Business Index is a comprehensive measure that provides a snapshot of economic activity around the Natural State. It encompasses a labor index, housing market index, construction index and retail sales index. The index is based around 100. A city rating above 100 indicates that the city is currently doing better than the state average from 2009 to the present.
Benton (5th, 103.09), Fort Smith (6th, 102.24), Hot Springs (7th, 100.62) and Conway (8th, 100.34) were the other communities to finish with a February 2016 ATBI rating above 100.
Mountain Home (9th, 99.48), Russellville (10th, 98.67), Texarkana (11th, 98.60), Van Buren (12th, 98.17), North Little Rock (13th, 98.15), Searcy (14th, 97.81), West Memphis (15th, 97.69), El Dorado (T-16th, 97.61), Jonesboro (T-16th, 97.61), Little Rock (18th, 95.08) and Pine Bluff (19th, 95.04) complete the ATBI for February 2016.
The cities making the biggest moves forward in terms of their rating during the second month of the year were Fayetteville (+1.24 points) and Texarkana (+1.11 points). Eleven of the 19 municipalities on the index saw their rating drop in February.
Dr. Marc Fusaro, associate professor of economics at Arkansas Tech, is the developer of the Arkansas Tech Business Index.
Visit www.atu.edu/atbi to access the data used to develop the ATBI.
