A wide urban-rural disparity is observed in employment growth in the United States. For example, employment growth averaged 2.1 percent in urban counties during 1998-2007, compared with just 1 percent in rural counties. In this study, we examine the sources of U.S. employment growth using the...

We investigate the effect of industrial concentration on productivity growth, a proxy for innovation, in the U.S. food industries. Here, we search for a possible critical level of concentration, i.e., the inverted-U hypothesis beyond which its relationship with productivity can turn negative....

This book is a compilation of latest contributions on rural-urban disparities associated with economic growth and development, and policy options to alleviate a perceived divide between cities and hinterland. It includes articles from foremost researchers in urban, rural and international...

This paper investigates the effect of trade cost changes on the spatial productivity distribution in Korea. Data on gross value added and primary factors for 163 spatial units during 2000-2005 are assembled to estimate local TFP using a value-added function. In our application, we control for...

This paper examines the causes of spatial inequalities in economic development across rural America. A theoretical model is developed to analyze interactions between location decisions of firms and households as they are affected by natural endowments, accumulated human and physical capital, and...

This study uses a unique firm-level dataset to examine how falling trade costs from 1993-2001 affected entry, exit, productivity, and exporting in the Korean manufacturing sector. We verify many of the predictions of recent heterogeneous-firm models of international trade. For example, falling...