This paper investigates rural residents' perceptions of the risk to water quality from large confinement facilities and their willingness to pay to delay nitrate contamination from these facilities. Rural residents are concerned about the environmental impact of confinement facilities and are...

A utility maximizing framework is used to model how wages, housing prices, and commuting time affect joint decisions of where to live and where to work. The implied multinomial logit model yields plausible estimates of the role of economic variables on joint residence/job location choices.

This research examines the relationship of social capital, measured at the community level, to community and economic development outcomes. We empirically examine the independent influence of social capital on development outcomes as well as social capital's interactive effect with other...

The aggregate approach to the evaluation ofproduction oriented expenditure in the UnitedStates has consistently shown high rates ofreturn to agricultural research investments.These efforts, while showing the value of agricultural research, are limited in the information they can provide policy...

This report provides a spatial representation of hospital geography in Iowa and of the decisions of patients to patronize hospitals. It begins with a brief analysis of hospital proximity and hospital proximity’s relationship to population distributions and existing hospital capacity. This is...

This report addresses the needs of state policymakers to understand the implications to the state’s economy from current levels of energy supply imports. Historical energy consumption patterns for the state and the role of energy in the performance of the Iowa economy are reviewed using...

A sample of Iowa farm couples is used to evaluate whether off-farm labor supply decisions respond to permanent and transitory components of farm income. Off-farm labor supply of both spouses declines in response to increases in permanent farm income. Farm wives also reduce off-farm labor supply...

Considerable controversy exists regarding the costs and benefits of growth in the meatpacking and processing industry in the rural Midwest. This study uses proprietary datafrom the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Longitudinal Database (LDB) to investigate theeffects of this industry on social and...

Growth in the meat packing and processing industry in the Midwestern United States has generated a significant amount of debate regarding the costs and benefits of this type of economic development. This research employs 1990-2000 proprietary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics'...