Pull factors provide a measure of retail trade capture. Pull factors for total and twelve subcategories of retail sales for all West Virginia Counties are analyzed based on 1997 Census of Retail Trade data. A method for estimating missing data points and the use of Rand-McNally trade regions...

Tourism has been playing an increasingly important role in the economic development and promotion for the state of West Virginia. However, how tourism resources are spatially distributed across all the state’s 55 counties has not received much attention. This study could be among the first in...

Spatial regressions have been widely used, but their use with the permutation tests of residuals either in linear or logllinear models is rarely seen. In the present study, we have linked the Cliff-Ord permutation test of Moran’s I on linear regression errors to loglinear regression residuals...

Despite comprising nearly 10% of the nation’s nursing home population, little is known about the quality of care provided by nursing homes located in rural Appalachia. However, anecdotal evidences suggests that the economic disadvantages associated with the Appalachian region may lead to...

The concept of industry clustering has generated much discussion in regional economic development theory and practice in recent years. Yet it is fair to say that an accepted definition or a unified theoretical framework has failed to emerge from the discussion, as the concept often seems to...

Niche agricultural products are growing in economic importance. This growth is driven mainly by the increased demand for more healthy, nutritious, fresh and locally grown food products. There is obviously a potential increase in private benefits to producers/landowners as a result of increased...

Venture capital has been identified by many as a vital element in the rapid economic growth of certain regions. The lack of access to capital, especially equity capital, has been identified as a major constraint to the economic growth of rural areas (i.e., venture capital access, as a...

A spatial panel data analysis at the county level examines how individual food consumption, recreational, and lifestyle choices ? against a backdrop of changing demographic, built environment, and policy factors ? leads to obesity. Results suggest that obesity tends to be spatially autocorrelated;...

A multivariate spatial autoregressive model of local public expenditure determination with autoregressive disturbance is developed and estimated in this paper. The empirical model is developed on the principles of utility maximization of a strictly quasi concave community utility function. The...

This research was motivated by the increasing number of foreign students and scientists who are in the United States on temporary visas who are able to change their status to permanent immigrant. Origin countries, among them industrialized western European nations, are concerned about losing...