This article examines multiple dimensions of regional per capita income disparities in the USA between 1955 and 2003 with a particular focus on scalar effects. It combines various exploratory analytical tools of spatial disparities, including inequality indices, mobility indices, kernel density...

We use U.S. county-level data to estimate convergence rates for 22 individual states. We find significant heterogeneity. E.g., the California estimate is 19.9 percent and the New York estimate is 3.3 percent. Convergence rates are essentially uncorrelated with income levels.

We use US county level data (3,058 observations) from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and the extent of government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. We find that increases in federal, state and local government employments are all negatively...

Die regionale Wirtschaftskraft der 402 Kreise Deutschlands, gemessen an ihrer Bruttowertschöpfung pro Kopf, ist 2014 deutlich gleicher als 2000 verteilt. Das gilt auch für die 1 300 Regionen der EU – wobei allerdings innerhalb der alten EU-15-Staaten ein Anstieg der regionalen Ungleichheit...

Gibrat's law, the orthogonality of growth to initial levels, is considered a stylized fact of local population growth. But throughout U.S. history, local population growth has significantly deviated from orthogonality. In earlier periods smaller counties strongly converged whereas larger...

At the regional scale, human capital and agglomeration forces are assumed to shape innovative capacity, but there are likely to be more direct channels like the development and commercialization of new products. This article examines the relationship between inventive activity and productivity...

Using state-level data on productive and unproductive entrepreneurship, shadow economy size, and public official corruption, this paper examines whether formal sector productive (unproductive) entrepreneurial activity is associated with lower (higher) levels of informal economic activity....

In this paper we outline (i) why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S., and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that sigma-convergence cannot be detected at the...

We utilize county-level data to explore the roles of different types of human capital accumulation in U.S. growth determination. The data includes over 3,000 cross-sectional observations and 39 demographic control variables. The large number of observations provides enough degrees of freedom to...

In this paper we outline (i) why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S., and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that sigma-convergence has not occurred at the...