With the Presidential candidates traipsing across Pennsylvania touting their plans to fix the U.S. economy, can the think tanks be far behind?

The Brookings Institution released a report today that suggests things the federal government might try to capitalize on the assets of metropolitan Pennsylvania.

By metropolitan Pennsylvania, the Washington, D.C. group means 16 urban regions from Philadelphia at the top to Williamsport at the bottom. The six largest metro areas generate 80 percent of the state's economic output, Brookings says, while 68 percent of Pennsylvania's population live in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg and Lancaster.

Brookings boils down the ingredients for economic prosperity to: innovation, human capital, infrastructure and quality urban places.

What should be done to encourage all of that? Brookings envisions a National Innovation Foundation that would work with industries, universities and local and state governments to spur innovation. While likening it to national agencies in Britain, France, Sweden and Japan, the report says that a U.S. version would not champion a set of industries:

NIF would not try to pick industrial "winners" or give out no-strings-attached "corporate welfare" to businesses. Instead, it would work cooperatively with companies, state governments, and other organizations to help them produce the innovation that the nation needs.

(I'll tell you, the description of how Brookings sees this organization working seems very similiar to Pennsylvania's Ben Franklin Technology Partners program: fund research consortia, help small companies find resources, grants for economic development...)

On its recommendations for human capital, Brookings wants the federal government to improve urban schools and make college more affordable. But as we know from efforts to turn around the Philadelphia School District, that's easier said than done.

Brookings would shake up how the federal and state governments decide how to repair or build roads, and upgrade mass transit. Believe it or not, Congressional earmarks are not good policy.

Finally, the think tank calls for the revitalization of Pennsylvania's historic cities, borough and urban places. A worthy goal, certainly. But how? I'm not convinced the three-paragraph synopsis in this report quite defines the "extreme makeover for federal policies" that Brookings is calling for.

There are some interesting descriptions of the vitality of the six large metro areas featured. For instance, I didn't know that the Lehigh Valley area experienced the fastest job growth since 2003 and population growth since 2000 among that group.

But one fact remains: Pennsylvania and all of these metro areas continues to lose population. As hard as it is to spur economic growth, it's even harder in a region that is shrinking.