Between 1997 and 2014, US corn, soybean and cotton production almost fully converted to genetically modified crops. Starting around 2007, improved tight oil and shale gas technologies turned the declining US fossil fuel production into a booming industry. We study the effects of these two...

We measure the effect of coal resource sector dependence on long run income growth using the natural experiment of coal mining in 409 U.S. counties that are selected for homogeneity. Using a panel data set (1970-2010), we find a one standard deviation increase in resource dependence is...