China is experiencing rapid urbanization with the steady emergence of large cities, leading to policy discussions of the role of large cities in its development. While the consensus is that agglomeration plays an important role in economic development and large cities can act as engines of...

Market access/potential are main explanations for spatial variation in economic activity. Past research has recently used the quasi-natural experiment of the imposition and removal of Iron Curtain to assess how changes in market access influenced economic outcomes. Rather, we focus on key...

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...

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 than the rest of the country. We do this by comparing patterns for the lagging Appalachian region to the U.S. as a...

This paper investigates the role of geography in high-tech employment growth across U.S. counties. The geographic dimensions examined include industry cluster effects, urbanization effects, proximity to a research university, and proximity in the urban hierarchy. Growth is assessed for overall...

Regional migration and growth are increasingly associated with high-quality in situ natural amenities. However, most of the previous U.S. research has focused on the natural amenities of the Mountain West or the South. The Great Lakes, with their abundant fresh water and natural amenities, would...

Economists typically celebrate productivity growth as the chief way to improve living standards. They also advocate that particular cities and regions strive to be as productive as possible to attract business and increase employment. However, while productivity growth may reduce costs, improve...

Factors such as falling U.S. migration rates and diverging regional economic fortunes have heightened interest in place-based policies. Indeed, the U.S. has had many such federal efforts including recently enacted Opportunity Zones. Historically, substantial federal funding has gone to regional...

The strong U.S. real income gains and reductions in poverty during the 1990s were largely erased in the following decade, which contained two economic recessions and tepid job growth otherwise. Areas most affected by weak U.S. economic performance could be expected to also have experienced the...

This paper examines the economic experience of past energy booms and of current unconventional shale gas and oil development. It focuses on key economic characteristics of gas and oil development, such as its employment potential, the geography of such development, its boom-bust nature, and the...