When local amenities are tied to natural land use features that cannot be developed for physical or regulatory reasons, the corresponding implicit price estimates from a hedonic housing model may reflect local supply constraints and confound estimation of natural amenity values. Using a spatial...

US inequality has rapidly increased since the early 1970s. For advanced economies, inequality is linked to stronger incentives that enhance growth, education, innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the rise in US inequality is concentrated in the top 1%. Hence it is increasingly possible that...

This research fills a void in the regional development literature by assessing how labor force migration affects regional adjustment in peripheral regions and whether it differs from the rest of the country. We do this by comparing patterns for the lagging Appalachian region to the United States...

Past studies of the impact of public capital on state economic well-betng have often focused on estimates of productton functions, yet such an approach overlooks some important economic relationships. This article presents estimates designed to care fully measure the impact of public capital on...

The relative effectiveness of local economic development efforts often hinges on the question of who benefits from regional growth. The authors address this issue by decomposing U.S. county-level employment into four supply components: net commuting, the employment (unemployment) rate, the labor...

Several recent studies contend that falling real minimum wage rates are an important factor behind rising wage inequality and increasing poverty rates. Other studies find the more conventional result that they have very little influence on poverty and inequality, but these studies are generally...

We examine differential state employment growth by appraising the relative effects of traditional cost factors versus knowledge and technology spillovers. One emphasis is the influence that industry composition has on employment growth. Traditional cost factors examined include wage rates,...

We examine family income inequality using 1990 Census of Population data for the 3,109 counties and independent cities in the 48 contiguous United States. Numerous characteristics of counties are examined for their role in influencing county income inequality. We particularly focus on...