Economic Development, Resilience, and Innovation

Investing in Rural Recovery: Comprehensive Summary of National Rural Development Stakeholder Listening Sessions

This report summarizes results from the an initiative carried out by the Regional Rural Development Centers in 2021 and 2022 to identify investments needed to fill the gaps between rural communities’ assets and opportunities. These facilitated dialogues included four sessions conducted at the regional level focusing on issues of regional importance, and four national sessions on topics of widespread importance.

Authors: Jason Entsminger, John Green, Rachel Welborn, Renee Wiatt, Z. Bednarikova, Rianna Gayle, and Yuxuan Pan

Publication: Published by the Regional Rural Development Centers Date Published: February 27, 2023

Tags: COVID-19

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The U.S. Recreation Economy: Data, COVID-19, and Implications for Extension

The breadth, depth, and speed of the economic collapse associated with the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented in economic history. No sector was hit harder than Leisure and Hospitality, which accounts for the economic core of tourism and recreation-based activity. Only recently has employment in this sector begun to show signs of recovery toward pre-pandemic levels. Here we document the importance of the Leisure and Hospitality sector to the economy and identify impacts from the pandemic and recovery, at both state and local (county) levels. Selected implications for Extension Services programming by Land- and Sea-Grant institutions are highlighted.

Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Luyi Han, Daniel Eades, Jason Entsminger, Doug Arbogast

Publication: 2021 NET Conference Proceedings Date Published: October 4, 2022

Tags: COVID-19

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An Examination of the Informational Value of Self-Reported Innovation Questions

Self-reported innovation measures provide an alternative means for examining the economic performance of firms or regions. While European researchers have been exploiting the data from the Community Innovation Survey for over two decades, uptake of U.S. innovation data has been much slower. This paper uses a restricted innovation survey designed to differentiate incremental innovators from more far-ranging innovators and compares it to responses in the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE) and the Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS) to examine the informational value of these positive innovation measures. The analysis begins by examining the association between the incremental innovation measure in the Rural Establishment Innovation Survey (REIS) and a measure of the inter-industry buying and selling complexity. A parallel analysis using BRDIS and ASE reveals such an association may vary among surveys, providing additional insight on the informational value of various innovation profiles available in self-reported innovation surveys.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Timothy R. Wojan, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: U.S. Census Bureau Working Paper Number CES-22-46 Date Published: October 1, 2022

Tags: rural innovation

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Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Tourism and Recreation Economies

NERCRD COVID-19 Data Brief 22-02: This data brief characterizes tourism-related economic changes in the Northeast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparisons between rural and metro counties are highlighted, showing that different tourism and recreation economies experienced the pandemic’s effects differently too.

Download the data brief:

Data Supplement

Download detailed Northeast state-level data here.

Authors: Jason Entsminger, Luyi Han, and Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: July 27, 2022

Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Briefs

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Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Economic Activity

NERCRD COVID-19 Data Brief 22-01: This brief is the first in a series to summarize the economic impacts of COVID-19 on Northeastern communities. In subsequent briefs, the series will highlight impacts in key industries and sectors.

Data Supplement

Download an excel spreadsheet providing GDP data at the regional and state level for the Northeast US, to accompany NERCRD Data Brief 22-01, “Impacts of COVID-19 on Northeast Economic Activity.”

Authors: Jason Entsminger, Luyi Han, and Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: July 27, 2022

Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Briefs

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An early assessment of COVID-19’s impact on tourism in U.S. counties

We use county-level data to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the tourism and hospitality sector, which was by far the most impacted of all sectors, focusing on employment and wage changes. Results support our hypothesis that rural counties experienced fewer negative impacts or even benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of job growth. We present maps showing the pandemic’s effects on leisure and hospitality (L&H) employment across the nation, identifying the communities both hardest hit and least impacted. A linear regression model is developed to explore independent factors that influenced the pandemic’s local impact. Results are robust across different measures of the key variable (rurality), including rural-urban continuum codes, distance from metropolitan areas, and population density. We also consider the impacts of social capital, income, and local economic diversification, among other factors. Our results suggest that remote, less-populated counties were more likely to experience stable employment in the L&H sector relative to pre-pandemic levels, and in some cases even experienced employment growth.

Authors: Luyi Han, Stephan J. Goetz, Daniel Eades, Jason Entsminger, Doug Arbogast

Publication: Tourism Economics Date Published: June 16, 2022

Tags: COVID-19

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Explaining Spatial Disparities in Fatal Drug Overdoses, 1970-2016

The opioid crisis has impacted many regions of the United States, transcending socioeconomic, demographic, and political divides and leading to urgent calls for public health and law enforcement interventions. It has hit both micropolitan and rural smaller communities especially hard, with severe increases in prescription drug-induced fatalities over time. This paper explores socioeconomic determinants and spatial disparities of fatalities caused by drug and opioid overdose (both intentional and unintentional), focusing specifically on rural-urban differences and understanding the separate role of net farm income in the drug overdose crisis.

Authors: Meri Davlasheridze, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: Review of Regional Studies Date Published: December 21, 2021

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The Role of Community Food Services in Reducing U.S. Food Insufficiency in the COVID-19 Pandemic

We use state-level Census Household Pulse Survey data to examine the role of community food
services such as food banks and pantries in reducing food insufficiency during the COVID-19
pandemic in the United States. Food insufficiency increased for all income classes during the
pandemic, and especially for the lower and middle classes. We adopt a fixed effects filtered
estimator to estimate the coefficients on time-invariant regressors in a fixed effects panel model.
Estimation results suggest community food services contribute to mitigating food insufficiency,
especially for the middle class and in the early months of the pandemic.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Claudia Schmidt, Stephan J Goetz

Publication: Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics Date Published: October 1, 2021

Tags: COVID-19

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The Conversation: More Americans couldn’t get enough to eat in 2020 – a change that hit the middle class hardest

Americans in households with annual incomes from $50,000 to $75,000 experienced the sharpest increase in food insufficiency when the COVID-19 pandemic began – meaning that many people in the middle class didn’t have enough to eat at some point within the previous seven days, according to our peer-reviewed study that will soon be published in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Authors: Zheng Tian, Stephan J. Goetz

Publication: The Conversation Date Published: September 23, 2021

Tags: COVID-19

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Female farmers in the United States: Research needs and policy questions

The literature on women in agricultural production in developing countries is vast. While female farmers in the United States have recently received more attention, their general characteristics and practices pursued have not received as much consideration by agricultural economists. Here we examine U.S. female farmers’ characteristics and factors associated with county level female farm shares using Census data. We find that these shares are higher near metropolitan core counties and that their presence is associated with agritourism activity as well as horticultural and small livestock production. We conclude with several policy questions and future research needed to assess the roles and impacts of female farm operators in the U.S.

Authors: Claudia Schmidt, Stephan J. Goetz, Zheng Tian

Publication: Science Direct Date Published: May 1, 2021

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