Penn State Spring 2026 Land-Use Webinar Series announced

Archive for Land Use

aerial view of city next to a body of water

Upcoming Event

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.

U.S. Energy Independence: Firm-level Insights from the 2023 Annual Business Survey and Implications for Rural Communities

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 […]

Publications

Did the U.S. Fracking Boom Shale-Shock Regional Patenting?

The shale boom of the early 21st century turned the U.S. into an energy powerhouse and significantly disrupted local economies with shale resources. This study examines the impacts of the U.S. shale boom on regional patenting at a commuting zone level. The shale boom may negatively affect patents if it crowds out labor and capital investments in other non-energy industries. Our findings show that a one standard deviation increase in non-vertical well density decreases patent intensity by 3.74% of the mean. Areas with higher drilling densities have lower levels of patented innovation compared to their counterfactuals. This paper contributes to the existing literature related to the “natural resource curse.” We provide new evidence based on regional patenting, which is an important indicator for regional innovation and long-term economic growth.

Authors: Luyi Han, John V. Winters

Publication: Growth and Change Date Published: September 17, 2024

Tags: natural resources, research, rural innovation

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Ecosystem Services on Working Lands in the Northeast U.S.

NERCRD provided advisory support to this effort, which was conducted by Alicia F. Coleman and Mario Reinaldo Machado and commissioned by the Association of Northeast Extension Directors and the Northeastern Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors. Coleman and Machado assessed over 1,300 ecosystem service provisioning programs and policies across the U.S. Northeast. The […]