Long-distance commuting and population change in Georgia, 1960-80

The authors investigate counter-urbanization and population change in Georgia between 1960 and 1980 by examining commuting patterns. "The immediate objective is to construct the entire set of commuting fields of both large metropolitan areas to metropolitan and nonmetropolitan employment centers. We then proceed to the relationship between commuting from nonmetropolitan areas to all levels of Georgia's urban hierarchy and population change in these nonmetropolitan settings. By matching population growth and decline areas with explicit employment ties...the nature of the population changes is much better understood." Data from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses for 581 Census County Divisions (CCDs) in Georgia are analyzed. It is concluded that "most nonmetropolitan growth taking place in Georgia is associated with intensification of metropolitan commuting fields along with growth of nonmetropolitan centers and their influence along the very periphery of metropolitan spheres of employment influence. However, a significant share of Georgia's nonmetropolitan population revitalization is explained by growth independent of direct metropolitan influence. It would appear then that nonmetropolitan growth centers are an important part of the basis for population decentralization in Georgia. Metropolitan spill-over alone cannot account for counterurbanization on this portion of the American economic landscape."     

Maquiladoras and U.S.‐Bound Migration in Central Mexico

Over the past one and a half decades, smaller cities and nonmetropolitan areas in Mexico have attracted manufacturing plants, led by the export manufacturing sector. Maquiladoras in particular are increasingly locating their plants in such places in the “deep interior” Mexico—outside of the border states. Using 1980 and 1990 Mexican census data for 19 growth centers and 27 high‐emigration municipios (counties) in Central Mexico, this paper suggests that foreign‐owned assembly (maquiladora) jobs decentralized significantly over the 1980s, locating closer to emigrant municipios. An examination of 17 emigrant municipios in the industrialized states of Jalisco and Guanajuato found that an emigrant municipio's accessibility to maquiladora jobs, and jobs indirectly related to maquiladora growth, was positively related to its overall employment growth, which was, in turn, negatively related to its U.S. migration rate over the decade. Although the migration reduction inherent in these relationships is relatively small, it could be accelerated by U.S. and Mexican policies giving incentives for more peripheral locations of export‐oriented and other manufacturing.     

Transitions of Poverty Amidst Employment Growth: Two Nonmetro case studies

ABSTRACT The theory behind employment growth as a strategy for lessening the poverty problem is based on a premise that job opportunities are inadequate. But during rapid employment growth in some nonmetropolitan areas of Kentucky and Georgia the effect on poverty has been limited. A large majority of poor households have no potential to leave poverty via employment since age, health, and other limiting factors among household members restrict entry into the work force. Also, for some the condition of being poor resulted not because they had never worked, but because they tended to have worked at marginal, low-wage jobs. Meanwhile, some jobs went unfilled because employers could not find persons who could meet the right requirements. This study shows that in these two areas, expanding employment opportunities did not significantly reduce the poverty problem. As the literature addressing the issue of the effects of employment growth on poverty is inconclusive and sometimes contradictory, clarification of how employment gains are distributed among local residents is essential.     

Integrating Economic Base Theory with Regional Adjustment Models: The Nonmetropolitan Rocky Mountain West

ABSTRACT Interest in the use of adjustment models has recently increased as analysts have come to see the value of these models in the study of regional growth processes. Adjustment models are especially useful in clarifying the nature and direction of population-employment interactions. However, other models of regional growth suggest that employment should not be treated as a single homogeneous variable, as is the usual assumption in regional adjustment models. This paper looks at the issue of employment disaggregation, and suggests that adjustment models can be alternatively specified by making use of economic base theory to separate employment into at least two broad sectors. Alternative economic base specifications are tested using data for the nonmetropolitan counties (n=254) of the US. Rocky Mountain West during a recent time period. The results show that an economic base version of the adjustment model provides insights to regional change that are not available from the traditional version of the model.     

Small Business Development and Nonmetropolitan Job Growth in Georgia

To assess development potential of small business, this research examines the age and size characteristics of nonmetropolitan firms and the contribution of business ‘births,’‘deaths,’ expansions, and contractions to job growth. Analysis of data derived from the federal‐state unemployment insurance program in Georgia indicates that firms employing fewer than 100 workers account for 44.3 percent of private sector nonfarm employment in nonmetropolitan counties. Overall, the mix of small and large firms remained quite stable over the five year study period. The dynamics of job creation and loss differed dramatically by enterprise size and manufacturing/nonmanufacturing sector. Three segments of the business population contributed most to rural job growth: very small continuing firms, large manufacturing establishments, and non‐manufacturing businesses owned by large enterprises. The paper concludes with a discussion of economic development policies that may enable rural communities to capitalize on these business demographic trends.     

Regional metropolitan and nonmetropolitan trends in annual growth rates of total personal income and population: 1959-1987

"The annual growth rates of total personal income and population in regional metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas [of the United States] are examined for the period 1959-87, partitioned into sub periods. Statistical testing for equality of rates shows no perceptible differences in growth rates between the major categories, metro and nonmetro. Further, this study uses a model similar in scope to shift-share analysis to test for convergence of the growth rates within these categories. It was found that for both regional nonmetro and metro areas, there was a general trend toward convergence with the exception of the 1970s decade. In that decade total population growth rates in the nonmetro areas and total income and total population growth rates in the metro areas showed significant divergences."     

Persistent Differences in Well-Being Between Appalachian Subregions

ABSTRACT Previously it was reported that regional variations in well-being (poverty, per capita income, and family income) among Appalachian counties did not originate from regional variations in urbanization, but from regional differences in well-being among nonmetropolitan counties. It was argued that southern Appalachian counties had higher levels of well-being at the end of the 1980s because nonmetropolian counties in southern Appalachia experienced greater economic growth during the 1980s than did nonmetropolitan counties in other Appalachian regions. In this paper these data are reanalyzed to test to what extent the original findings are affected by the presence (and failure to control) spatial autocorrelation. Using a spatial lag model it is shown that correcting for spatial autocorrelation statistically altered the original results. However, substantively, the conclusions from the original analysis did not change: regional differences in county well-being in Appalachia are largely the product of regional differences among nonmetropolitan counties, even after correcting the model for spatial autocorrelation.     

Industrial Development Groups,Organizational Resources,and the Prospects for Effecting Growth in Local Economies

Using data from a survey of directors of not-for-profit industrial development groups in the United States and from a variety of secondary sources, we test the hypothesis that the presence of an active industrial development group was a significant factor in the economic growth of its service area over the 1977-to-1982 period. The data permit us to control for different levels of organizational resources among growth promotion groups as well as other traditional factors of local economic change in a regression analysis. While growth promotion groups are judged to be effective in terms of the number of jobs that are created or preserved relative to their direct expenditures of resources, neither their presence nor the levels of their organizational resources are significantly related to service area net employment change. The efforts of growth promotion groups are simply overwhelmed in importance by factors such as population size, metropolitan accessibility, location in a growth region, and manufacturing wage rates that characterize the respective service areas.     

Interactions Between Economic Growth and Environmental Quality in U.S. Counties

ABSTRACT Linkages among changes in employment, earnings per worker, and pollution per square mile are estimated for 3,036 U.S. counties for the period 1987 to 1995 using a three‐equation disequilibrium adjustment model. Counties with higher shares of African‐Americans experienced higher earnings growth rates over the period 1987‐1995, as did counties with proportionally more females. Counties in states with higher shares of unionized workers had higher earnings growth rates but generated fewer new jobs. Firm size had a significant and negative effect on earnings growth while higher costs of living were associated with higher earnings growth. Also, metro counties and counties in the Northeastern U.S. experienced higher earnings growth than their non‐metro counterparts and counties in other geographic regions. Statistically, faster job growth was found to accelerate the rate of earnings growth per worker. The authors conclude that counties concerned with job growth should recruit or attempt to spawn the creation of larger firms, recognizing that for some firms such a strategy may come at the cost of more rapid increases in pollution. Counties concerned with increasing the rate of growth in per worker earnings should instead focus on the creation of smaller firms.     

Cyclical and noncyclical unemployment differences among demographic groups

The objective of this study was to determine if 1) the full employment-unemployment rate, or natural unemployment rate, changed between 1954-79 differentially for various subgroups in the US population; 2) minimum wage laws and unemployment compensation impacted differentially on subgroups in the population; and 3) there were structural shifts in the determinants of unemployment and labor force participation rates among subgroups. The 6 subgroups investigated were white and nonwhite teenagers, white and nonwhite females, and white and nonwhite males. Trends and cycles in unemployment were analyzed using regression techniques and basic time series models, and structural changes in the unemployment rate were analyzed by using a technique developed by Brown, Durbin, and Evans to test for change in estimated regression coefficients. Results indicated that the natural unemployment rate in the US increased from 4.70% to 5.14% between 1959-79. This increase was due in part to the unemployment rate increases observed among different subgroups in the population, and expecially among teenagers. In 1979 the unemployment rates among teenagers were 13.6% for whites and 28.72% for nonwhites. Respective rates in 1979 for white and nonwhite adult females were 4.20% and 9.98%, and for white and nonwhite adult males they were 2.78% and 6.36%. Other findings were 1) increases in minimum wage had a positive impact on the nonwhite teenagers' jobless rates, no effect on the white teenager jobless rate, and a negative impact on the adult unemployment rate; 2) increased unemployment compensation was positively associated with higher jobless rates for adult males and nonwhite teenagers; 3) the jobless rate was not significantly related to changes between 1954-79 in the proportion of different age, sex, and race groups in the population; and 4) structural shifts in the determinants of unemployment were observed for secondary workers only. Tables provided the results of the regression analysis, estimates of unemployment rates, by race, sex, and age for 1959, 1969, and 1979, and labor force composition and employment rates by race, sex, and age for 1954 and 1981.     

Does Public Lands Policy Affect Local Wage Growth?

The effects on wage growth of management practices applied on public lands in the Northern Forest region of the United States are quantified. A central objective is to determine if the management of public lands for preservationist uses results in lower average wages. This is a frequent claim made by critics of land preservation who argue that preservationist management, by prohibiting resource extraction, causes the composition of employment to shift from high‐wage jobs in resource‐based manufacturing to low‐wage jobs in the service sector. A model of simultaneous employment and net migration growth is estimated with data on non‐metropolitan counties over the period 1990 to 1999 and applied in a recursive relationship to wage growth. In earlier studies, models of this type have typically been specified in levels. Time‐series evidence that supports a preference for growth rates is provided as the form for such models. Exogenous variables in this model include the 1990 shares of the county land base that are publicly owned and managed for preservationist (non‐extractive) uses and multiple (including extractive) uses. It was found that wage growth rates are not significantly affected by the shares of land under either management regime. As well, recent declines in national forest timber sales are found to have no effect on wage growth.     

Spatial and Temporal Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Trends in Income Inequality

ABSTRACT Overall total inequality for state per capita personal income as well as total inequality for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas are examined for the period 1969 to 1995. In each case, the total inequality was partitioned into between-and within-region variations. Statistical testing shows no perceptible differences between the major categories, nonmetropolitan and metropolitan. Further, this study uses a model to test for narrowing of income gaps within these categories. It was found that for both nonmetropolitan and metropolitan, a general trend toward equality was evidenced during the early 1970s decade. In that decade, the nonmetropolitan areas’incomes approached the metropolitan areas’incomes but showed significant divergences in the 1980s, followed again by a narrowing of the gaps in the 1990s.     

“Moderate” Environmental Amenities and Economic Change: The Nonmetropolitan Northern Forest of the Northeast U.S., 1970‐2000

ABSTRACT Population, employment, and income changes in a region comprised of eighteen nonmetropolitan counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York are described using Bureau of Economic Analysis data covering 1970 to 2000. Changes at the county level are examined as net differences using pooled cross‐section time series analysis. The specific focus of the empirical analysis is the effect that environmental amenities have in population and economic change. Empirical results indicate that a county's relative endowment of environmental amenities has positive economic change effects, but only when the county is relatively accessible as well. Further, the environmental amenity effects vary in their temporal consistency, even when accessibility is taken into account. In general, however, the reported results support the proposition that even relatively moderate environmental amenities can hold positive effects for economic change.     

不同覆膜种类和还苗期灌溉方式对襄阳山区烟草生长发育的影响

以云烟87为研究对象,于2018-2019年连续2年研究了烟草还苗期常规灌溉、轻度补灌和重度补灌3种灌溉方式与白膜、转光膜、配色膜和黑膜4种覆膜颜色互作对前期垄体膜下土温、土壤含水率,揭膜时烟株农艺性状、干物质积累量和烤后烟产质量的影响。结果表明：在不同补灌条件下,补灌方式对垄体膜下土温影响较小;在相同补灌条件下,白膜和转光膜升温效果优于配色膜和黑膜;垄体膜下0~15cm土壤含水率表现为黑膜>配色膜>转光膜>白膜,15~30cm土层土壤含水率表现为白膜>转光膜>配色膜>黑膜。在相同覆膜处理下,移栽后1~7d土壤含水率随补灌量的增加呈上升趋势,0~15cm土层上升较显著。互作处理M-Z（轻度补灌+转光膜）揭膜时烟株、根茎叶干物质积累量最高,烤后烟的产质量表现最好。在襄阳山区采用轻度补灌+转光膜方式可促进烟株大田生育期前期生长发育,提升烟叶产量和质量。     

Interindustry Employment Requirements in Nonmetropolitan Communities

Interindustry employment requirements are examined in nonmetropolitan communities ranging in population size between 1,000 and 15,000. A ten-sector economic base model is first used to estimate the demand for nonbasic employment in five different functional types of communities. A new and improved method for community impact assessment is then outlined. Here a distance-weighting procedure is applied to the various type-specific estimates of nonbasic employment so that a composite employment requirements matrix can be calculated for any study community. Finally, postimpact interindustry requirements are decomposed into two effects: preimpact employment requirements plus nonbasic employment shifts reflecting structural change. All estimates and findings are based on the Arizona Community Data Set.     

Urbanization,interregional accessibility,and the decision to migrate

Trends in population and labor force growth in nonmetropolitan areas of the United States during the 1970s are analyzed. The authors investigate the relationships among migration behavior, urban accessibility, and externalities such as congestion that are associated with urban residence. "A model of the migration decision [is examined] that incorporates in an explicit fashion this proximity-centrality relationship. Estimates of the model are also discussed, with specific attention given to the relationship under question. In addition, the age selectivity of the relationship [is] examined. Insights on the nonmetropolitan reversal drawn from the model estimates are discussed in a third section, followed by concluding remarks."     

Agglomeration of Services in American Metropolitan Areas

The growth of many service industries among American metropolitan areas stem from an eclectic set of forces. These include market penetration effects of increasing importance of services throughout the economy, agglomeration effects in immature and deregulated industries, and institutional and infrastructure constraints. These diverse forces are interpreted as urbanization and localization economies. A cycle of centralization of 27 fast growing service industries is documented for MS As in the period 1977-84. The two agglomeration effects are tested directly, using a power function model that relates employment and establishment growth to MSA size and initial level of employment in a local industry. Localization economies rather than the general advantages of metropolitan size best explain the growth patterns. This result implies that service industrial complexes are rapidly emerging in American metropolitan areas.     

The Arts and Employment: A Case Study of the Stratford Festival

This paper examines the impact of the Stratford Festival on employment within the community of Stratford, Ontario. The specific objective is to calculate the number of “secondary” jobs created in Stratford per “primary” job generated at the festival. This is achieved in three stages. First, primary employment is calculated from information provided by theatre personnel. Second, secondary employment is assessed from information collected in a survey of local business proprietors. Third, a festival-employment multiplier is derived. This reveals the number of secondary jobs created in the community per job at the festival. Results indicate that 1.6 jobs result in Stratford for every job generated at the theatre. This finding provides evidence that cultural organizations contribute positively to the economic climate of a community. The economic consequences of cultural events constitute an important argument for their continued support.     

Age and educational dimensions of recent U.S. migration reversal

The author examines the impact of migration on age and educational structures in nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. In particular, he considers whether migration reversal between 1970 and 1975 had an impact on the traditional draining of the young and better educated from nonmetropolitan areas to the cities