We compare the returns to human capital in rural areas with those in urban areas, and across the different regions of the US. A key finding is that these returns are considerably lower in rural than in urban areas. Furthermore, failure to correct for spatial dependence bias produces an...

Occupational segregation by gender persists in spite of improvements in labor market gender equality over the past 40 years. In this paper a simple index of occupational segregation, the D-Index, computed for each of the 288 census divisions in Canada for the year 2000 is regressed on a measure...

When job prospects are uncertain, labor market size matters even when labor and jobs, respectively, are homogenous. The expected time to employment and its standard deviation may differ systematically with labor market size and create incentives for agglomeration.

In this paper I make some summarizing comments regarding the papers in this special issue. I argue that we have entered a product-specialization stage in regional science scholarship and that there may now be a need for some broad synthesizing research such as that characteristic of earlier...

This study examines the role of recreational amenities, both within the county as well in neighboring counties, on employment growth using data from 618 counties in the U.S. midwest. Using a wide range of amenity variables and spatial econometric methods, we find that natural and recreational...

Food processing firms are often seen as potential sources of growth for rural areas. This paper examines the influence that agglomeration, labor, product and input markets, infrastructure, and government fiscal attributes have on food manufacturing investment flows. The analysis uses a spatial...

The objective of this research is to investigate employment patterns by age-sex specific cohorts through the application of a modified version of the shift-share model and in the process incorporating the Patterson (1991) regression analogue. Are older workers becoming unemployed or encouraged...

The role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in increasing the education and economic well-being of rural Blacks is not, perhaps, as clear today as in the past given the abolition of formal segregation in public education. This paper presents evidence that HBCUs still play a...

Despite the surging interest in entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy, studies of the independent relationship between proprietorship formations and job growth are virtually non-existent. We find that self-employment or proprietorship rates are associated with faster job growth in...

A basic result of new economic geography (NEG) models is that the proximity to consumer markets impacts wages and employment within regions. The ongoing process of European integration, being targeted on the reduction of barriers to trade and factor mobility, has presumably changed relative...