The purpose of this research is to investigate factors impacting farmers’ decisions to engage in multifunctional activities, which are hypothesized to enhance the sustainability and prosperity of farms and their communities. To achieve this research goal, I will break it up into two specific...

Grocery retailing concentration in U.S. cities increased on average in 1982, continuing a long-term trend. The all-SMSA (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area) average four-firm concentration level in grocery retailing rose to 58.3 percent in 1982, compared with 56.3 percent in 1977, the...

Beginning farmers and ranchers have some unique characteristics, including more education and more off-farm jobs, compared with established farmers and ranchers.

This paper estimated the fiscal impact of a job creation tax credit, a proposed incentive for establishments participating in the Indiana enterprise zone program. State unemployment insurance files were utilized with GIS to obtain enterprise zone data. Labor demand and labor supply were...

Conventional measures of gross domestic product (GDP) fail to account for the effect of economic activity on the environment. Integrated environmental-economic (or 'green') GDP is calculated using a data-envelopment-analysis (DEA) framework. For this purpose a dynamic cross-country technology is...

This paper evaluates the impact of increasing concentration of the livestock sector on the economic welfare of rural Illinois. A pooled time-series, cross-sectional model is developed to study the dynamics of structural changes in hog production for the period 1981-1997. The model tests the...

In this study, we examine the association of urban-to-rural migration with the deterioration of labor market in urban sector due to the globalization of markets and production. Two measures of the relative impacts of globalization on urban and rural labor markets: changes in rural-urban real...

Farm operators are an integral part of some rural economies. The businesses they operate often hire seasonal and full-time employees and purchase goods and services from local farm implement dealers, input suppliers, and financial institutions. Farm household spending on food, furniture and...

We synthesize recent case studies on rural poverty in six Latin American countries, plus two thematic studies. We find that the return to education in farming is surprisingly small; land redistribution increases total farm output, but has mixed effects on income; and urban economic growth...

Identifying target industry sectors for community economic development is a complex problem. The Community-Business Matching (CBM) Model is a tool that assists in identifying desirable industry sectors for sustainable economic development. The framework of the model is based on two measures,...