Bostonians love to find new ways to take potshots at New York. Most recently, the Boston-based Beacon Hill Institute released its 2002 “Metro Area and State Competitiveness Report.” The Institute surveyed 50 American cities to measure how well these cities “attract and incubate new businesses” and “provide an environment that is conducive to growth.” New York City ranks 37 out of 50, sandwiched between such wellknown boomtowns as San Antonio and Detroit. Boston — surprise! — ranks third, behind Seattle and San Francisco. At least the Beacon Hill Institute, which is based at Suffolk University, had the restraint not to rank its hometown first.

These rankings are only as good as systems used to devise them. The Beacon Hill Institute’s definition of competitiveness takes into account statistics on such things as taxes as a percent of the gross state product, murders for every 100,000 inhabitants, electricity prices, and bank deposits. Interestingly enough, the records of a city’s major league baseball team aren’t taken into account.

Boston dominates two of the study’s primary categories, “Human resources” and “Technology,” both of which are slathered with statistics that favor Boston because of its many universities.

Some of the data underlying the study, however, are instructive. New York’s energy prices tie for the nation’s highest, owing to overbearing regulation. The city’s bond rating is poor relative to other major cities, due to fiscal mismanagement, which crowds out capital improvements and overburdens citizens with taxes.

We think New York can compete just fine with any city in the world, let alone Boston. All kidding aside, though, the Beacon Hill study has a refreshing free-market emphasis for something that emerged from a university. Available on the Web at beaconhill.org, it’s worth a look for anyone concerned with making New York more competitive than it already is.