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Amenities and Rural Appalachia Economic Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Steven Deller  and
Victor Lledo
Steven Deller
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin
Victor Lledo
Affiliation:
African Department of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D. C.
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Abstract

Patterns of economic growth in rural Appalachia are examined with a focus on natural and built amenities. While the literature is clear that rural areas endowed with scenic beauty, lakes, forests, and wildlife, among other natural amenities, and coupled with built amenities such as golf courses, are experiencing robust economic growth. It is not clear if these patterns extend to rural Appalachia. In this applied research study we use data for rural U. S. counties. We estimate an augmented Carlino-Mills growth model with specific attention to growth patterns of Appalachia. We also build on the empirical modeling by adopting a Bayesian Modeling Average (BMA) approach to address the problem of model specification. We find that while there are some commonalities across the whole of the United States, the country is sufficiently heterogeneous that impact of amenities or other policy variables may be significantly different depending on where one is within the country. Our results suggest that while non-metropolitan Appalachia tends to follow national trends, there are sufficient differences that warrant special attention.

Keywords

amenitiesquality of liferural economic growthBayesian
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Agricultural and Resource Economics Review , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , April 2007 , pp. 107 - 132
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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