Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development

 

 

Archive for Economic Development, Resilience, and Innovation

2026 Northeast Housing Summit

The NERCRD has convened a multi-state team to plan a virtual Northeast Housing Summit, which will take place virtually on September 15 or 22, 2026, from 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM ET.  This page will be updated regularly as more information becomes available.

Person grocery shopping but faced with several empty store shelves

Hunger affected mental health more than income, job loss amid COVID-19 pandemic

April 14, 2026

Not having enough food may have had a greater negative effect on mental health in the United States than unemployment or loss of income during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in Plos ONE. The study was led by Linlin Fan, associate professor of agricultural economics at Penn State, and NERCRD Director Stephan Goetz. Yuxuan Pan, a former NERCRD postdoctoral scholar and now at the University of Kentucky, also contributed to the study.

Economic shocks, food insufficiency and mental health: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

Millions of Americans experienced a sudden loss of income along with hunger early in the COVID-19 outbreak. Using Household Pulse Survey data from April 23, 2020 to March 29, 2021, the authors found that the pandemic significantly impacted both food sufficiency and mental health, with food insufficiency having a larger negative impact on mental health than income loss.

Authors: Yuxuan Pan, Linlin Fan, Stephan Goetz

Publication: Plos ONE   Date Published: March 12, 2026

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Penn State Spring 2026 Land-Use Webinar Series announced

January 7, 2026

The Penn State Extension Land Use Webinar Series, organized in partnership with the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Planning Association (PA-APA) and the NERCRD, offers five monthly webinars beginning January 21 on land use topics affecting the communities of Pennsylvania.

Innovative businesses may be less likely to be approved for credit loans

October 1, 2025

Innovation helps spur rural economies, but a new study by NERCRD researchers and their collaborators found that while firms incorporating innovation into their business model had higher credit application rates, they were less successful in receiving loans, especially in rural areas.

Rural innovative firms and credit: Findings from the annual business survey

Credit access remains a critical constraint for rural firms. This study examines how the innovation orientation of businesses affects credit access in urban and rural areas using the 2021 Annual Business Survey.

Authors: Luyi Han, Timothy R. Wojan, Anil Rupasingha, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: Elsevier Finance Research Open   Date Published: September 17, 2025

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Small Business Loans in Different U.S. County Types

This working paper describes how the number of financial loans and loan amounts per capita vary across different U.S. county types over the period 2000-2022, using Community Reinvestment Act small business loan data.

Small-Business-Loans-Different-US-Counties.NERCRD-RDP-59.August2025Download

Authors: Yuxuan Pan, Stephan J. Goetz, and Yuan (Timothy) Zhuang

Publication: NERCRD Rural Development Working Paper Series   Date Published: August 20, 2025

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Mother and child boarding city bus

New research brief examines rural-suburban-urban differences among Northeast caregivers

June 24, 2025

The latest publication in NERCRD’s caregiving research brief series describes the caregiving experience for rural, suburban, and urban caregivers in the Northeast region of the U.S., as reported by households as part of the “NER-Stat: Caregiving Survey.”

Design: A critical input to rural innovative entrepreneurship

Abstract: Described as a mediation between people and technology, design is critical to innovative entrepreneurship but has been ignored in innovation research. The rigorous study of design has suffered from an inability to differentiate firms that approach design as ad hoc from those approaching design as a structured, creative process. This research uses newly available data from the 2022 Annual Business Survey Design Module categorizing 4 different approaches to design. These data allow us to examine the link between design and innovation with a focus on businesses in nonmetropolitan counties that challenges conventional wisdom that design is overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon.

A news release describing the key findings and their implications is available here.

Authors: Timothy Wojan, Luyi Han, Zheng Tian, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship   Date Published: June 18, 2025

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Decorative image: aerial view of people working on project with diagrams, sticky-notes, and a laptop

Strategic design approach boosts rural innovation, researchers find

June 18, 2025

Businesses that take a strategic approach to design are up to eight times more likely to develop innovative products than those that don’t, according to a study by NERCRD researchers.

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