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Natural resource development, both extractive (oil, gas, mining, and timber) and non‐extractive (tourism, real estate, outdoor recreation), has been found to negatively impact economic prosperity in rural America. One mechanism recently proposed for why this occurs is high levels of labor market concentration, or oligopsony. Oligopsony occurs when there are few employers within a labor market and can lead to suppressed wages and a power imbalance between employers and workers. In this paper, we test the moderating effect of labor market concentration on the relationship between natural resource development and per capita income and poverty in rural America from 2010 to 2016. By comparing results between extractive and non‐extractive development, as well as manufacturing, we show that labor market concentration attenuates the beneficial relationship observed at low levels of specialization in natural resources—particularly for extractive forms of development. Further, by finding no significant relationship between manufacturing specialization and economic prosperity, nor any moderating effect of labor market concentration in the case of manufacturing, we demonstrate that natural resource development and labor market concentration have a unique relationship with rural American economic prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use panel data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to document the changing volume and rate of intercounty migration among the poor. We evaluate whether the exchange of migrants between metro and nonmetro counties has exacerbated spatial disparities in poverty and whether some nonmetro counties have become "collecting grounds" for America's poor. The PSID highlights exceptionally high rates of intercounty migration among the nonmetro population, but especially among the poor. The results show that rural poor migrants circulate among nonmetro counties, often from one poor county to an even poorer one. This circulation of poor rural migrants has exacerbated the concentration of poverty in the most economically disadvantaged nonmetro counties. Concentrated poverty also is exacerbated by the migration of the "best and brightest" from nonmetro‐to‐metro counties, which also is associated with upward residential attainment (to counties with lower poverty rates). Significantly, metro‐to‐nonmetro migration is both selective of the poor and strongly associated with downward residential mobility to poorer nonmetro counties. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that poor nonmetro counties have become collecting grounds for America's poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]