Unless there are spatial barriers that limit adjustment, economists argue that policies to alleviate poverty should focus on poor people, not poor places. Akin to urban spatial mismatch hypotheses, we develop a distance-based friction explanation of higher rural poverty. Empirical examination of...

Immigration is one of the most emotional topics in the political arena, which is an issue that has not gone unnoticed by economists. Recent studies usually examine sub-national areas to take advantage of the widely varying local concentrations of immigrants. Yet, there is no consensus on the...

The sources of urban agglomeration and the development of the urban system have been studied extensively. Despite the pivotal role of the hinterlands in theories of the development of the urban system, little attention has been paid to the effect of urban agglomeration in a developed, mature...

Unemployment durations for the typical jobless person have trended upward since the mid 1960s. This is troubling because the long-term unemployed are at great risk of entering the underclass and concentrations of long-term unemployment put stress on states and localities. This study examines the...