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This paper utilizes a novel dynamic propensity score matching approach for multiple cohorts of U.S. counties between 1989 and 1999 to examine local economy resilience to rare natural disasters. Affected counties are sorted based on disaster intensity and are carefully matched to similar counties that did not experience a disaster. A difference-in-difference estimator compares trends of affected counties' postdisaster business establishments, employment, and payroll to counterfactual trends in the matched counties. All affected counties experienced short-run drops in economic activity that was particularly noticeable in higher-intensity disasters. In the longer run, less distressed counties returned to their estimated counterfactual trends, but countieswith lower predisaster socioeconomic conditions still lagged in growth, particularly in cases of lowerintensity disasters. Policymakers can use this information to better prepare responses to future disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the role of the business size distribution on income and employment growth in U.S. counties from 1990 to 2000. We measure the business size distribution as the share of employees across nine establishment size categories that range from microfirms (one to four employees) to large firms (1,000+ employees) and using three indices similar to a Gini coefficient. Results show that the business size distribution has a significant impact on county-level growth patterns. Employment shares in small firms increase employment growth, but decrease income growth. One possible conclusion suggests policies emphasizing small firms and entrepreneurship during times of high unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies empirically estimate the effects of metropolitan growth on nonmetropolitan communities at a national scale. This paper estimates the growth effects of 276 MSAs on population in 1,988 nonmetropolitan communities in the United States from 2000 to 2007. We estimate the distance for growth spillovers from MSAs to nonmetropolitan communities and test the assumption that a single MSA influences growth. We compare three methods of weighting cities' influence: nearest city only, inverse-distance, and relative commuting flow to multiple cities. We find the inverse-distance approach provides slightly more reliable and theoretically supportable results than the traditional nearest city approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High growth and progressive regions possess a culture that promotes innovation. In-novation depends on a region's ability to use its own existing knowledge and knowledge generated elsewhere. This paper demonstrates the importance of the ability to absorb external knowledge in ex-plaining innovation productivity for 106 U.S. metropolitan areas. Using a spatial interaction model of patent citation flows with origin and destination dependence, the destination fixed-effects coefficients provides a measure of a region's absorptive capacity. We identify local conditions that shape a region's absorptive capacity and demonstrate it has a positive and significant impact on innovation productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper examines the continued strong population growth in U.S. nonmetropolitan areas possessing high levels of natural amenities during the 1990s and the reasons for near convergence of growth across the top tiers of the amenity hierarchy. Based on estimated parsimonious spatial hedonic growth regressions, strong demand for high-amenity areas continued in the 1990s, but the converging of population growth across the top tiers appeared related to capitalization of amenity differences among the tiers into factor prices. Yet, evidence obtained from controlling for spatial effects suggests that the relative quality of life in the top two tiers had deteriorated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper first investigates a relationship between economic growth and income inequality using U.S. states data, a state cost-of-living deflator, and nonlinearity. It then explores the distribution of income gains among different income groups. We find that the impact of inequality on growth is nonlinear. Lowering inequality or increasing it substantially reduces growth; thus stable inequality may be good for growth. Economic growth affects incomes of the poor, the middle-income group, and the rich similarly with the elasticity of one. Education and labor market policies become important in promoting growth and improving income gains of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a descriptive analysis of spatial trends in six U.S. metropolitan areas. The results show that generalized job dispersion was a more common spatial process than subcentering during the 1980s and 1990s when jobs continued to decentralize from the metropolitan core to the suburbs. Three distinctive patterns of spatial development were found. Job dispersion was predominant in Portland and Philadelphia, whereas the polycentricity of Los Angeles and San Francisco was further reinforced. New York and Boston with large and long-established CBDs were less prone to decentralization. Each metro seems to have developed a unique pattern of decentralization in light of their histories and circumstances, which has limited the growth of commuting times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reexamines the issue of output convergence among the 48 states in the continental United States. Implementing multiple panel data techniques to state per capita output during the period 1929–2001 reveals little evidence of stochastic convergence in all 48 states, but some evidence among collections of states at the regional level. This observation may suggest that output convergence in the United States has proceeded among geographically neighboring states rather than among distant states, notwithstanding the nearly complete integration of product and factor markets. Our findings appear to be robust to a subsample analysis, although the intensity of convergence varies with the choice of output measure and deflator. Industrial structures and geographic proximity are considered as potential explanations for the regional pattern of output growth dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of state economic development incentives on the growth of 366 Ohio manufacturing and nonmanufacturing establishments that launched major expansions between 1993 and 1995. Growth is measured as the actual employment change that occurred in these establishments and as the employment growth announced when expansions were launched. Empirical findings indicate that incentives have very little (or even a negative) effect on actual growth and they have a substantial positive effect on announced growth. Findings also suggest that establishments that received incentives overestimated their announced employment targets more than establishments that did not receive incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]