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...

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....

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...

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 sustained surge in self-employment since 2000 has largely gone unnoticed by policy makers and economic developers. Here the authors document this surge and identify variables associated with expanding self-employment. Results provide mixed evidence about the importance of capital access to...

This article reviews the literature that evaluates WalMart’s impacts on local economies. The authors first describe the methods used to account for potential reverse causality of WalMart’s store location decisions, and then they discuss the literature assessing the company’s...