A large and growing literature to explain how state and local policies affect factor markets, firm location and economic growth has developed in three distinct threads. These threads have variously emphasized how policy and natural amenities affect regional economic growth or firm location; how...

The rolling recessions of the 1970s and 1980s were characterized by industry and region specific shocks that led to large dispersions in the economic performance of regions across the U.S. The 1970s were primarily impacted by sharply rising energy prices that hit the manufacturing states hard...