The historical analysis of US regional growth is improved by augmenting existing estimates of state personal income per capita, extending previous studies of convergence across states, and more broadly, offering an improved basis for interpreting other issues in regional development such as the...

This study identifies the determinants of interstate variation in labor productivity levels at twenty-year intervals between 1880 and 1980. Focusing on fundamental rather than proximate influences, we find that institutional characteristics, physical geography, and resource abundance can account...