The increasing volume of remittances and public transfers in rural areas of the developing world has raised hopes that these inflows may serve as an effective mechanism for reducing poverty in the long term by facilitating investments and raising productivity, particularly in agriculture where...

Economists broadly recognize that the U.S. rural economy is no longer a farm economy, yet policy makers often justify support for agriculture by stressing the sector’s importance to the rural economy. We use the historically high crop prices in the late 2000s to estimate the marginal effect of...

U.S. policy makers often justify agricultural subsidies by stressing that agriculture is the engine of the rural economy. We use the increase in crop prices in the late 2000s to estimate the marginal effect of increased agricultural revenues on local economies in the U.S. Heartland. We find that...