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Regional scientists commonly concern themselves with topics involving regional inequalities--why they occur and persist, how inequality may be reduced or what exacerbates it, and the impact of policy interventions. Regional inequalities fuel our research and its policy relevance. For most of us, these investigations are in the context of exogenously defined "regions," with political and administrative boundaries originating in a decentralized government context. The regions that are our units of analysis seldom reflect economic realities, yet their boundaries, once drawn, are very persistent and to a large extent determine the degree to which inequalities may be reduced over time, either through private decisions or through government policy. This paper offers a descriptive illustration of fundamental differences among Canada's provinces as a potential constraint on the possibility of convergence over time, interregional migration responses, and the impacts of an explicit national government equalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the impact that removing a railway transportation subsidy has on the adoption of production technology for Western Canadian farms by using a unique combination of census and freight rate data. We exploit the large regional variation in these one-time freight rate increases to identify causal effects of increased competitive pressure. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that higher freight rates—and hence lower farm gate prices—induced farmers to adopt new, more efficient production technology. We also find that farmers experiencing the greatest transportation cost increases also increased their fertilizer usage and made significant land use changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cooperatives in rural areas of Canada had their beginnings in agriculture and in serving farmers and farming communities. They developed to market products, access inputs, process outputs, and to provide mutual insurance services and cooperative banking services. Over time, other players performing similar functions have left as agricultural communities have experienced population losses, while many cooperatives remain. The cooperatives provide access to services crucial for small businesses, producers, and households in rural areas, as well as representing access to networks within and beyond the community. This paper investigates whether a positive impact of the presence of credit unions in rural communities can be discerned in the community's ability to retain and attract population. Our quantitative results do not support the hypothesis of a positive influence, although limited results of a qualitative case study suggest that credit unions perform a different function in rural communities than commercial banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social economy holds promise for rural community development through local capacity building, improving political engagement, expanding networks, and increasing productivity by reducing transactions costs. In this study, the contribution of co-op membership to rural community population growth is estimated, along with standard growth determinants. With minor exceptions, the results do not support the expectation that co-ops improve the population growth prospects of rural communities. Currency (or obsolescence) of this particular type of social capital may be a factor. Alternatively, social capital in the form of co-ops may be serving as a substitute for private sector enterprise or other forms of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental governance challenge for federal nations is benefiting from decentralization, while addressing potential negative side effects, including vertical and horizontal imbalances. Inefficient migration due to differential net fiscal benefits in subnational units is one potential negative side effect. To avoid this type of migration, federal payments to disadvantaged subnational units, a place-based policy, are often advocated. In this article, we assess federal equalization transfer payments in Canada as an example of such a policy. Equalization is appraised in terms of its marginal influence on interprovincial migration, after accounting for the persistent relative attractiveness (unattractiveness) of provinces as migration destinations/origins. We then compare equalization to an alternative policy that directly subsidizes workers. Compared to a ''people-based'' policy of wage subsidies, our findings suggest that at the margin, these federal transfers have virtually no impact on net migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advisability of an urban-centered growth strategy to reap the benefits of urban agglomeration economies is much debated. Rural areas benefit when the growth "'spreads" to the hinterlands, especially within daily commuting distance. Yet, in distant-peripheral locations, urban growth may create a "backwash" as households relocate to the urban center. This study examines spread vs. backwash, as separate from long-run, distance-from-urban-center trend effects, using a novel Canadian GIS database. The unique nation-wide approach yields a spread and backwash rural-growth topography that varies by distance from the urban center, by urban population vs. income growth, and by size of rural community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determinants of rural and urban community population change over the period 1991–2001 are investigated at a very fine level of disaggregation for Canada. The study examines the influence of local amenities, economic factors, and agglomeration economies on population growth for age cohorts starting from the very young to the elderly. Motivated by the objective of assessing the overall jobs versus people question in economic development, the emphasis is on estimating the relative contribution of groupings of variables in explaining the variations in population change rather than the contribution of individual variables. Results indicate that rural and urban populations are influenced to differing degrees by amenity, economic, and urban scale groupings of variables and that there are variations among age cohorts in both urban and rural areas. While economic variables are the most influential in population change for all rural cohorts, their contribution somewhat diminishes with age. In urban areas, amenity, and economic variable groupings have approximately equal importance across all cohorts. For the key young adult cohort, the economic grouping is clearly the most influential in rural areas, while it is a close second to amenities in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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 DIndex, computed for each of the 288 census divisions in Canada for the year 2000 is regressed on a measure of "rurality," along with the standard explanations. The rurality variable is included to capture the influence of spatial variations in access to services and employment opportunities. Results indicate a strong influence of rurality, even when industrial composition is controlled for. Education attainment gaps and the presence of children are also significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the spatial organization of labor market areas (LMAs) based on commuting patterns of Saskatchewan residents from 1981 to 1991. Previous attempts to define functional economic areas; Classification of rural municipalities; Impact on the rural labor force.