When DuPont needed to make a plant location decision between Luxembourg and Circleville, Ohio, in the Columbus Region, the site selection ultimately came down to one factor — who wanted it more.

Reliable, reasonably priced electricity and natural gas drive economic growth. But as any corporate customer or economic developer will tell you, a utility’s devotion to its territory can usually be measured by actions unrelated to selling more power.

Governor Mitch Daniels leaves office in early 2013, leaving behind a job description that should be of keen interest to new governors taking office that want their states on a firmer fiscal footing. His formula works.

A sequence of infrastructure projects is positioning Georgia for the future. But it’s the people of Georgia who will get you there. Collaboration and teamwork are typical, rather than surprising. Take Baxter International’s billion-dollar biologics manufacturing plant that broke ground this summer at the Stanton Springs site in Covington developed by a four-county coalition. Or Caterpillar’s decision earlier in the year to locate a manufacturing plant at a longstanding candidate site at the juncture of two counties near Athens.

From household brand names like Westinghouse Electric Co., U.S. Steel and Alcoa to emerging energy technology leaders like Aquion Energy, BPL Global and kWantera, Pittsburgh is well on its way to being known as the new center of American energy.

Ingenuity, access and a surprisingly diversified economy make for a bountiful business harvest in North Dakota. It’s a place where seeding the future still means something quite literal. Energy may rule the headlines, but ag still rules the roost, employing 24 percent of the state’s population in related industries and driving some $4 billion in cash receipts.

How did Malaysia outperform South Korea in a recent global competitiveness ranking? How did it perform better than Germany, Japan and Taiwan in another, measuring ease of doing business? In the first case, Malaysia ranks 21st in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, beating South Korea by three places.