In his Presidential Address, Professor Woodward uses South Carolina’s economic development experience as a case study of significant challenges in regional development. The state has re-industrialized and emerged as a leader in attracting capital investment through generous financial...

We analyze the impact of economic development policies and highway infrastructure improvements on growth of per capita income and jobs in Michigan counties. The policies considered for analysis have significant impact on growth outcomes. However, this effect is non-linear. Significant...

Using U.S. county data from 1990 and 2000, a family of spatial models examining growth in population and employment are reported. Special attention is paid to the role of microenterprises--firms with less than five employees--in predicting economic growth. Results suggest that microenterprises...

Urban sprawl has been criticized for its disproportionate impact on the environment. Yet urban areas are in fact less land-intensive than recent rural development patterns. Residential first-movers into such virgin areas may spark waves of ensuing development without incorporating the true...

The concept of regional competitiveness is increasingly popular among academics and policymakers as indicated by reports that rank or grade regional economies. Competitiveness in these studies generally is measured by growth rates in population, employment, and per capita income. This paper...

Although the traditional economic base model remains a useful tool for regional analysis, in a multi-region context it fails to account for feedback effects. In addition, since the model is typically applied to individual regions, formal assessment of variation in the magnitude of regional...

We examine the empirical relationship between public investment and per capita income growth in the Spanish regions over 1965-1997. Using a neoclassical growth model with public and human capital, a convergence equation is derived and estimated using panel data techniques. Besides providing...

Considerable ambiguity exists regarding the assessment of regional economic development. Alternative measures often produce conflicting conclusions. Even if economic development progress is defined as improvement in economic welfare, it is not directly measurable. Therefore, this paper develops...

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

The 2009 SRSA Fellows Address: Changes in Economic Policy during the Obama Administration as seen from the USDA and Economic Research Service.