Kansas economists are trying to figure out why the state’s businesses bucked a national trend of declining bankruptcy filings.

According to figures released Friday, the number of business bankruptcy filings for the 12-month period ending Sept. 30 declined by 7.8 percent across the country. But in Kansas, the number of businesses seeking protection increased nearly 21 percent.

A total of 294 businesses in the state filed for bankruptcy, up from 243 a year ago. It hadn’t been that high since 1998, when 295 businesses filed for protection.

The latest figures reflect the third straight year that Kansas business bankruptcy filings increased.

David Burress, a research economist with Kansas University’s Policy Research Institute, said the increase was difficult to explain.

“I am surprised that they’re higher than 2002 totals,” Burress said Monday. “It is definitely a negative indicator.”

Burress said the state’s reliance on agriculture and aviation, two industries that have been depressed for several years, might have contributed to the bankruptcy filings.

“In some ways we have our own special problems here,” Burress said.

But Burress said other broader indicators, such as state sales, property and income tax collections, suggested Kansas’ economy was improving.

“Bankruptcy filings don’t tell you the main things that are going on in an economy,” Burress said. “But it does tell you about the people who are under the most economic stress, and it appears there certainly were a lot of people under stress.”

Tracy Turner, an assistant professor of economics at Kansas State University, also said she thought the state’s economy was improving.

She said the rise in bankruptcy filings might be a delayed reaction to poor conditions in 2002.

“Certainly 2002 was a difficult year for the local economy,” Turner said. “The filings we are seeing now probably are in response to the business conditions in 2002. Businesses can run in the red for a while, hoping that their sales and bottom line will improve. But 2003, for whatever reason, may have been the year that many of them decided they couldn’t go on any longer.”

Burress predicts business bankruptcy filings will decline in 2004.