CRITICAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN RURAL ECONOMIES

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

ON THE EXISTENCE OF STABLE EQUILIBRIA IN AGRICULTURE

Problems of instability and disequilibrium in U.S. agriculture are synthesized within a single conceptual framework. Agricultural and non-agricultural sector offer curves are used to illustrate why it may not be feasible to achieve and maintain equilibrium and price stability in U.S. agriculture. Empirical evidence on resource disequilibrium and instability in the ratio of prices paid and received by farmers is presented.Instability, Disequilibrium, Offer curves, U.S. agriculture, Policy, Demand and Price Analysis,

County Amenities and Net Migration

U.S. county-level net migration data and a general spatial model are used to examine the effects of various amenities on migration decisions. Results suggest that higher county cancer risks and the presence of superfund sites in a county, or a higher ranking on the Environmental Protection Agency's hazard ranking system, reduce the relative attractiveness of a county to prospective migrants, while natural amenities on balance attract migrants, ceteris paribus. The results also reveal spatial dependence among contiguous counties in terms of net migration behavior.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Wal-Mart and Rural Poverty

Wal-Mart® has created tremendous economic benefits for consumers by providing more choices at lower prices. The benefits are felt especially in communities that had only local retail monopolies prior to the arrival of the store. Yet no mretailer evokes stronger negative emotions than this chain. Recent media attention has focused on questionable labor practices and low wages combined with lack of benefits paid by the corporation, while academic studies have examined effects of the stores on retail wages, employment levels and numbers of establishments. Missing from the literature is an analysis of whether the "Wal-Mart effect" is large enough to measurably influence community-wide family poverty rates over time. This is the first study to carefully and comprehensively examine whether a relationship exists between existing and new locations of Wal-Mart stores and county-wide faily poverty rates.Marketing,

MODELING ECONOMIC GROWTH WITH UNPREDICTABLE SHOCKS: A STATE-LEVEL APPLICATION FOR 1960-90

A Barro-type economic growth model is estimated for the 50 states in the U.S. using data for three decades beginning in 1960. Frontier estimation techniques are used to test for the presence of state-specific shocks to economic growth that are independent of the usual, normally-distributed random errors. We find that large, positive shocks to growth occur during the period 1960-90. Our results indicate that the error term structure assumed each other OLS may not be appropriate for modeling economic growth.Economic growth, Frontier estimation, Shocks, U.S. states, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A COUNTY-LEVEL ANALYSIS

The effect of social capital on economic growth is examined using linear regression analysis and U.S. county-level data. Results reveal that social capital has a statistically significant, independent positive effect on the rate of per-capita income growth.economic growth, social capital, U.S. counties, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development,

LOCATION DECISIONS OF ENERGY-INTENSIVE MANUFACTURING FIRMS: ESTIMATING THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF ELECTRIC UTILITIES DEREGULATION

Location decisions of electric energy-intensive manufacturing establishments are examined in the context of electric utilities deregulation, using Tobit and probit methods. Rural counties which once had an advantage recruiting manufacturing industries by offering low electricity rates may lose firms to other regions of the country under deregulation.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION: COUNTY-LEVEL EVIDENCE FROM THE U.S. SOUTH

Changes in income distribution are estimated for the U.S. South over the 1970 and 1980 decades using Gini coefficients for county-level, real family income. To explicitly investigate causal relationships between economic growth and inequality, a two-stage least squares model was estimated. In the 1970s, more rapid increases in inequality were associated with a reduced income growth rate, ceteris paribus, while in the 1980s, the opposite was true. Faster rates of income growth were associated with more rapid increases in inequality during the 1980s, but rates of income growth had no effect on changes in inequality during the 1970s.Causality, Economic growth, Inequality, U.S. South, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Identifying and Measuring the Effect of Firm Clusters Among Certified Organic Processors and Handlers

This paper investigates the certified organic handler sector, a specialized component of the middle part of the farm-to-table marketing chain, and documents the impacts of firm agglomeration (or firm clusters) on firm-level performance or firm-level decisions. After accounting for endogeneity in firm clustering, our findings confirm that firm clusters have significant impacts, though the estimate of the impact depends on how a firm cluster is defined. For example, significant impacts on sales per employee range from an additional $0.17 million to$1.47 million, depending on whether a small or large number of firms is used as the minimum number to define a firm cluster.firm clusters, organic, treatment effects, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Mosaic structure in the spines of Holopneustes porossisimus

Sea urchin spines of Holopneustes porossisimus are porous singlecrystals, with the pores being filled with a material rich in carbon,silicon, fluorine and sodium. The magnesian calcite constituting thespine is highly strained. Even though the spines appear to be singlecrystalline on a macroscopic scale, the calcitic material exhibits anextended defect network. We find dislocations as well as rotational andother, not yet identified boundaries. We also observe within spinecalcite a patterned distribution of sulphur. Both distributions, that ofthe defect network and that of sulphur resemble in their pattern to eachother and have a similar mesh size of 50 nm. We conclude from theseobservations that they arise from the growth process of the spine andaccount for the mosaicity within the spine single crystals