Natural Resource Curse and Poverty in Appalachian America

The Appalachian mountain region has long been characterized by deep poverty which led to the formation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in 1965. The ARC region covers West Virginia and parts of 12 other states, running from New York to Mississippi (Ziliak 2012). The ARC region had an average county poverty rate of over 40 percent in 1960, about double the national average (Deaton and Niman 2012; Ziliak 2012). While the poverty gap between the ARC region and the rest of the nation closed significantly by 1990, it remained nearly twice as large in Central Appalachia. There are many reasons for higher poverty in Appalachia in general and Central Appalachia in particular. Possible causes include a low-paying industry structure, below average education, low household mobility, and remoteness from to cities (Weber et al. 2005; Partridge and Rickman 2005; Lobao 2004). A key distinction between Central Appalachia and the rest of the ARC region is its historic dependence on coal mining. There is long literature arguing that the area’s dependence on coal mining has contributed to its deep poverty through weaker local governance, entrepreneurship, and educational attainment, as well as degrading the environment, poor health outcomes, and limitations on other economic opportunities (Deaton and Niman 2012; James and Aadland 2011). These factors are broadly associated with the natural resources curse in the international development literature. More recently, the process of mountain top mining (MTM) has expanded coal mining’s environmental footprint in the region, possibly increasing health risks and further reducing the chances for long-term amenity-led growth that can alleviate poverty (Deller 2010; Woods and Gordon 2011). This study reinvestigates the causes of county poverty rates in Appalachia with a special focus on coal mining’s role. Using data over the 1990-2010 period we assess whether coal mining continues to have a positive association with poverty rates, even as the industry’s relative size has declined. We also appraise whether MTM is associated with higher poverty. We do this by comparing the ARC region to the rest of the U.S. and by using more disaggregated employment data that allows us to differentiate the effects of coal mining from other mining (versus aggregating all mining together as in past research). The results suggest that any potential adverse effects of coal mining on poverty have declined over time. Below, we first develop an empirical model followed by the empirical results. The final section provides our concluding thoughts

The Emerging Roles of County Governments in Rural America: Findings from a Recent National Survey

County governments are the fastest growing level of local government in the United States. Based on a recent survey of counties in 45 states, this paper analyzes the size of county governments relative to other local governments, the scope of county government services, and fiscal stress faced by county governments.Public Economics,

Thick brane models in generalized theories of gravity

This work deals with thick braneworld models, in an environment where the Ricci scalar is changed to accommodate the addition of two extra terms, one depending on the Ricci scalar itself, and the other, which takes into account the trace of the energy-momentum tensor of the scalar field that sources the braneworld scenario. We suppose that the scalar field engenders standard kinematics, and we show explicitly that the gravity sector of this new braneworld scenario is linearly stable. We illustrate the general results investigating two distinct models, focusing on how the brane profile is changed in the modified theories.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. To appear in PL

Local governments that offer greater incentives for businessesdo not retrench welfare services

In the pursuit of economic development and growth, many local governments in the US are increasingly turning to offering lucrative incentives to businesses such as tax incentives, loans and other subsidies. Many scholars and commentators have become concerned that these incentives are going hand in hand with the gutting of social welfare services. In new research, Lazarus Adua and Linda Lobao find no such relationship between counties putting in place business incentives and cutting services. In fact, such counties were actually more likely to provide a greater number of social services

The Adaptive Dynamics of the Halloween Effect: Evidence from a 120-Year Sample from a Small European Market

The Halloween effect predicts that stock markets in the winter months (November through April) generate significantly higher returns than in the summer months (May through October). This paper examines the time-varying behavior of the Halloween effect within a new historical dataset that covers about 120 years of Portuguese stock market history. We combine subsample analysis with rolling window analysis to show that the performance of the anomaly has varied in an adaptive fashion over time. The anomaly existed during the first four decades of the 20th century. Afterward, it vanished for 60 years, reappearing only at the beginning of the 21st century. However, in the first two decades of the new century, the effect seems to be a mere reflection of the excess return generated in January. Overall, the time-varying performance of the Halloween effect supports the adaptive market hypothesis for the Portuguese stock market