The Appalachian Regional Commission's definition of the Appalachian region is the one used most often by scholars, politicians, and the popular press. The uncritical use of this definition of Appalachia raises issues of both selection bias and excess heterogeneity in regression analysis of...

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...

This paper replicates and analyses a study by Hoover and Pecorino (2005) on federal spending in US states. H&P followed on path-breaking research by Atlas et al. (1995) in which evidence was claimed in favour of the “small state effect;” namely, that since every state is represented by two...