Economic Development, Resilience, and Innovation

Prior research suggests that expanding entrepreneurship or self-employment is a key strategy for promoting economic growth in rural, distressed regions. Furthermore, self-employment rates of women and minorities (especially Blacks) have lagged those of White males in rural areas. This project, led by West Virginia University, seeks to understand the factors that support or deter women and minority entrepreneurship and to translate these findings to help key stakeholders develop policies and programs to support women and minority entrepreneurs. Our objectives include 1) identifying the factors associated with higher shares of women and minority self-employed in rural counties using unique proprietary data; 2) examining the factors associated with the success or failure of women and minority entrepreneurs using confidential firm-level micro data; and 3) translating the research findings into Extension programming to support rural women and minority entrepreneurship and promote broad rural prosperity.

Project Outputs

• Report: Minority-Owned Businesses: Insights from States in the Northeastern Region

Funding Agency: USDA NIFA

Principal Investigator: Heather Stephens, West Virginia University

Accompanying Institution(s): University of Maine, NERCRD

Start Date: May 2023   End Date: May 2026

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The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development conducts original research with its partners and connects faculty and Extension educators in the region with one another and to national collaborators and resources, thereby creating synergies and reducing duplication of effort. The five goals of this multi-state Hatch project are approved by the NERCRD’s Board of Directors’ and are to:

• Build regional capacity and facilitate the integration of research and outreach.
• Support rural economic development and entrepreneurship, and innovation.
• Facilitate tourism development, including agritourism.
• Address climate change and carbon levels.
• Measure and promote food and nutrition security.

If you are interest in participating in this regional research project, please contact Stephan Goetz.

Funding Agency: Northeast Regional Association of Experiment Station Directors

Principal Investigator: Stephan J. Goetz, Penn State/NERCRD

Start Date: October 2024   End Date: September 2029

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The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is perhaps the greatest sociotechnical challenge humanity has faced. Federal expenditures in 2023 supporting the transition exceed $369bn, and yet remarkably little information exists about why or how firms are transitioning to new energy forms. The much lower energy density of renewables will create new land use conflicts such as those emerging from agrovoltaics. Although studies have examined technological pathways to a low-carbon economy, research on carbon emissions reduction strategies has suffered from a paucity of data. Now, for the first time, the 2023 Annual Business Survey includes a module on firm level decarbonization efforts that allows robust analysis of the challenges. This project will make use of confidential data from the Census Bureau, Energy Information Administration, and National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within a Federal Statistical Research Data Center to illuminate why, how, and where the low carbon economy is emerging. A central hypothesis is that rural open space confers new economic benefits in the energy transition, even as community resistance to siting green energy infrastructure is growing. A key sub-objective is investigating how firms and communities are navigating the challenges and costs of installing this new infrastructure. The research team will use state of the art econometric models to identify relationships between firm and community characteristics and green energy adoption at the establishment level, for the benefit of rural communities and businesses, and society more generally. Research team members include: Stephan Goetz, Zheng Tian, and Luyi Han (NERCRD/Penn State); Timothy Wojan (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, U.S. National Science Foundation); and Justin Winikoff (USDA Economic Research Service)

Funding Agency: USDA NIFA

Principal Investigator: Stephan J. Goetz, NERCRD/Penn State

Accompanying Institution(s): National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, U.S. National Science Foundation; USDA Economic Research Service

Start Date: July 2024   End Date: June 2027

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The focus of this two-year, $300,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is to develop a new method for accurately measuring innovation activity in small geographic regions. The research team endeavors to shed light on the factors that promote or hinder innovation among firms in different U.S. locations, as well as facilitate more targeted and effective local interventions to foster economic growth and social well-being.

Funding Agency: U.S. National Science Foundation

Principal Investigator: Zheng Tian, NERCRD, NERCRD

Accompanying Institution(s): National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics

Start Date: July 2024   End Date: June 2026

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In 2023, NERCRD partnered with the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) to deploy a survey in the Northeast region focused on the caregiving experiences of households in the Northeast U.S. The survey received 4,480 responses from all 13 states in the region, and sheds light on how caregiving intersects with community and economic development in the Northeast region. 

Survey Products:

• Research Brief: “The economic and social well-being of caregivers in the Northeast Region.”
• Research Brief: “What supports do caregivers in the Northeast use and what support do they still need?“
• Research Brief: “The Complex Picture of Caregivers Health and Well-Being in the Northeast Region“
• The Northeast caregiving dataset is available at: https://purr.purdue.edu/publications/4491/1

The caregiving survey, titled “Caregiving Across the Life Course,” is part of the NCRCRD’s recently launched NCR-Stat, a North Central regional dataset being developed as a venue and incentive for interdisciplinary collaboration. The caregiving survey was developed by researchers from NCRCRD, The Ohio State University, the National Farm Medicine Center, Penn State, AARP, University of Minnesota, Purdue University, University of Rhode Island, and South Dakota State University to better understand how caregiving intersects with community and economic development.

Funding Agency: USDA NIFA via NERCRD's core funding

Accompanying Institution(s): NCRCRD, The Ohio State University, Purdue University, Penn State, AARP, University of Minnesota, University of Rhode Island, South Dakota State University

Start Date: October 2023   End Date: Ongoing

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This multi-state Hatch research project will examine resilience and recovery through the lens of rural tourism in the Northeast region. Planned objectives include conducting collaborative assessments of rural tourism at the multi-state level; investigating the resilience, adaptability, and recoverability of different components of the rural tourism system; and identifying strategies that tourism businesses and destinations are using to cope with the pandemic.

Funding Agency: Hatch Multistate Research Fund

Principal Investigator: Doug Arbogast, West Virginia University

Accompanying Institution(s): Penn State

Start Date: October 2022   End Date: September 2027

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The long-term goal of this project is to enhance the sustainability and resiliency of rural destinations by providing research-based information and a destination management framework for rural gateway destinations. This project is led by Doug Arbogast, West Virginia University Extension, with collaborators including National Extension Tourism Design Team (NETDT), Penn State, University of Vermont, University of New Hampshire, and the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development.

Project team members bring a unique combination of research and analytical skills in addition to extensive industry experience supporting rural tourism destinations and providing innovative programs to guide sustainable management strategies. The addition of researchers from the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD) at Penn State brings expertise in econometric modeling, which will be applied to develop a rigorous understanding of the county-level determinants and impacts of tourism development over time.

Objectives:

• Identify economic, social, and environmental indicators for sustainable tourism (across all US counties and in three case study communities).
• Survey residents and visitors in case study destinations to identify social and environmental indicators.
• Deliver Extension programming in targeted gateway communities through pilot programming using the research-based insights generated in objectives 1 and 2.
• Assess change over time and associated impacts thus providing a mechanism to update the data on a regular basis to monitor changes and reflect on community goals.

Resources for Residents

Funding Agency: USDA NIFA

Principal Investigator: Douglas Arbogast, West Virginia University

Accompanying Institution(s): Texas A&M University, Penn State, University of Vermont, University of New Hampshire

Start Date: January 2022   End Date: December 2025

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Agritourism activity has the potential not only to keep small- and medium-sized farms in business but also to provide important local economic development spillover effects. While agritourism is not profitable or even appropriate in all communities, various stakeholders report that key barriers currently prevent farmers who would like to provide agritourism services from doing so. These barriers represent opportunity costs and include not only lack of information among producers, consumers, supporting organizations and policy makers, but also regulatory gaps across the states. Drawing on extensive stakeholder input, guidance and collaboration, the goal of this four-year project led by NERCRD Faculty Affiliate Claudia Schmidt (Penn State) is to develop and disseminate practical information that will allow small- and medium-sized farmers and rural communities to benefit from the growing consumer interest in agritourism activities. Supporting objectives include understanding the roles and educational needs of various organizations in supporting agritourism; improving understanding of factors that contribute to growth in agritourism across U.S. counties; and delivering peer-reviewed educational materials to farmers as well as supporting organizations and policy makers.

Collaborators on the project included: 

• Claudia Schmidt, Penn State and NERCRD, PI
• Lisa Chase, University of Vermont
• Jason Entsminger, University of Maine
• Stephan J. Goetz and Zheng Tian, Penn State and NERCRD
• Sarah Cornelisse, Jackie Schweichler, and Suzanna Windon, Penn State
• Stacy Tomas, Oklahoma State University

Below is a list of impacts and outputs from this project, which will be updated regularly as the research is ongoing. For a complete report on the work of this project, visit the USDA NIFA reporting portal. 

Selected Impacts:

• Through a number of publications and presentations made by the project team, researchers, agritourism support organizations, and non-technical audiences have increased their understanding of the status of agritourism in the U.S. and how it can be supported.
  • For example, the researchers found that agritourism and direct farm sales complement one another when they occur within the same community. These findings could help farmers and the local organizations that support them plan strategically for farm resilience and growth, and were shared widely via a peer-reviewed publication, a Penn State News release, and  presentations.
  • The researchers also found that availability and adoption of high-speed broadband appears to boost the number of farms offering agritourism activities. These findings bolster the argument for expanding broadband availability in support of farm operators who want to benefit from the growing consumer interest in on-farm experiences. This research was published in the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and were shared widely via a Penn State News release and presentations. 

Selected Outputs

• Hollas, C. R., Chase, L., Conner, D., Dickes, L., Lamie, R. D., Schmidt, C., Singh-Knights, D., & Quella, L. (2021). Factors Related to Profitability of Agritourism in the United States: Results from a National Survey of Operators. Sustainability, 13(23), 13334. 
• Schmidt, C., Chase, L., Barbieri, C., Rilla, E., Knights, D. S., Thilmany, D., Tomas, S., Dickes, L., Cornelisse, S., Lamie, R. D., Callahan, R., George, H., Leff, P., Schmidt, C., Chase, L., Barbieri, C., Rilla, E., Knights, D. S., Thilmany, D., … Leff, P. (2022). Linking Research and Practice: The Role of Extension on Agritourism Development in the United States. Applied Economics Teaching Resources, 4(3). 
• Schmidt, C., Han, L., Moghadam, A., & Goetz, S. J. (2024). Broadband access and agritourism operations in the United States. Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, jaa2.128. 
• Schmidt, C., Tian, Z., Goetz, S. J., Hollas, C. R., & Chase, L. (2023). Agritourism and direct sales clusters in the United States. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 52(1), 168–188. 
• Schmidt, C., Entsminger, J., Lo, K., Hollas, C., Tomas, S., Goetz, S. J., & Cornelisse, S. (2023). Agritourism in the United States: State and National Fact Sheets. (More information about the fact sheets is available via this Penn State News article.)
• Entsminger, J. S., & Schmidt, C. (2024a). Agritourism and Recreational Services on US Farms: Data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. (NERCRD Data Brief 2024–1). 

  Entsminger, J. S., & Schmidt, C. (2024b). Direct-to-Consumer Sales of Agrifood Products by US Farms: Data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. (NERCRD Data Brief 2024–2).

Funding Agency: USDA NIFA

Principal Investigator: Claudia Schmidt, Penn State

Accompanying Institution(s): University of Vermont, Oklahoma State University, University of Maine

Start Date: July 2020   End Date: June 2024

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