Andrew M. Isserman

New highways as economic development tools: An evaluation using quasi-experimental matching methods

Abstract Stimulating economic growth and development in rural and economically lagging regions is the goal of several federal and state highway programs. This paper examines the effectiveness of highway investment as an economic development tool. A quasi-experimental matching method is used to examine the effects of interstate highways on counties which obtained links during the period 1963–1975 or are in close proximity to these newly linked counties. The results show that the beneficiaries of the interstate links in terms of economic growth are interstate counties in close proximity to large cities or having some degree of prior urbanization, such as a city with more than 25,000 residents. Rural interstate and off-interstate counties exhibit few positive effects.

State Economic Development Policy and Practice in the United States: A Survey Article

The states have taken an increasingly active role in economic development policy during the past two decades. This article presents both a comprehensive overview of the state strategies and a statistical overview of the changing economic conditions from which they arise. The strategies can be grouped into three distinct orientations. Chasing and acquisition focuses on bringing into the state businesses, export orders, federal facilities and contracts, tourists, retirees, and other external sources of growth. Self-improvement focuses on helping businesses and people in the state become more competitive by improving education systems, stimulating research, helping firms adopt new technologies, providing venture capital, and improving roads, communications, and other infrastructure. Knowledge and process focuses on doing those things better by making greater use of markets and business practices.

The History, Status, and Future of Regional Science: An American Perspective:

This comprehensive paper examines the roots and dreams of early regional science, focusing on its scholarly association, its concepts of science and region, and its claim to be a separate discipline. Regional science never became a science or a discipline, and it has had a peculiar relationship to regions. Yet, it has had spectacular success as an international, interdisciplinary scholarly forum, and it has produced noteworthy contributions to several disciplines. This paper also assesses the standing of contemporary regional science within economics, geography, planning, and other academic fields and points out its achievements and failures. It discusses the place of regional science in academic space, intellectual space, and real world space and proposes future directions with respect to each.

The use of control groups in evaluating regional economic policy

Abstract A major difficulty in measuring the impact of regional policy is the identification of what would have happened in the absence of the policy. Regional science may benefit from the use of quasi-experimental approaches. The specific method presented here combines the concept of control groups with the widely used shift-share framework for evaluating regional policy. Control areas are selected on the basis of their similarity to the aided region in the pre-policy period. The resulting method is sensitive to changing cyclical conditions and other exogeneous factors and traces out the time pattern of impacts.

QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL CONTROL GROUP METHODS FOR REGIONAL ANALYSIS: AN APPLICATION TO AN ENERGY BOOMTOWN AND GROWTH POLE THEORY*

This paper constitutes an argument for the use of quasi-experimental control group methods as a measurement technique to study economic and spatial structural change. The essence of such methods is the careful identification of a control group-a set of places whose economic development enables measurement of what would have happened in the place under study without the phenomenon or policy being studied. The quasi-experimental approach can be used in economic geography for basic research and planning and policy studies, including measuring the effects of highway investment, airline service, plant closings, tourism activities, dam construction, development initiatives, energy booms, and growth poles. Examples of the last two applications are provided here to illustrate the use and potential of the method.

Forecasting Interstate Migration with Limited Data: A Demographic-Economic Approach

The limitations of available migration data preclude a time-series approach of modeling interstate migration [in the United States]. The method presented here combines aspects of the demographic and economic approaches to forecasting migration in a manner compatible with existing data. Migration rates are modeled to change in response to changes in economic conditions. When applied to resently constructed data on migration based on income tax returns and then compared to standard demographic projections, the demographic-economic approach has a 20% lower total error in forecasting net migration by state for cohorts of labor-force age.

New directions in quasi-experimental control group methods for project evaluation

Abstract Quasi-experimental control group methods can become valuable tools for evaluating public policies and programs that have a spatial dimension. Control groups of places can be used to establish a baseline from which the effect of “treatment” can be inferred. This paper describes the basic approach by presenting an empirical example and then reports on an on-going, multi-year research project intended to make these methods readily usable. The research is focusing on methods for computerizing the selection of control groups and for conducting statistical tests of the significance of the inferred treatment effects.

Socioeconomic impacts of US nuclear weapons facilities: A local-scale analysis of Savannah River, 1950–1993

Abstract During the 1940s and 1950s, massive facilities were built in the United States to design, construct and test nuclear weapons. What has been the impact of these facilities on the employment, income and population of the surrounding areas? Doubt exists about whether the national security mission was good for the regions where the facilities were built. Using four counties adjacent to the 310-square mile Savannah River nuclear weapons site, we apply a method that estimates the impact by comparing the growth of the counties to a set of counties that were similar prior to the construction of the nuclear weapons facilities. This counterfactual method identified large increases in employment, income and population during the 1950s and the mid-1980s in two counties with weapons facilities. But no benefits and perhaps a negative impact appeared for a third county. The DOE and its contractors are dramatically reducing employment and budgets at Savannah River and other weapons sites. Employment at the site has fallen from over 25u2008000 in 1992 to less than 17u2008000 in 1996. It may drop to 8000 if no new `missions are created. Federal policy toward these regions is discussed in light of these intra-regional variations in economic impact.

U.S. interstate labor force migration: An analysis of trends, net exchanges, and migration subsystems☆

Abstract The rich geography and complex temporal trends of U.S. interstate labor force migration are portrayed. The most commonly reported net migration statistics hide multi-faceted patterns of state-to-state exchange. Maps depicting net migration balances show that much population redistribution has been taking place counter to the popularly conceived Frostbelt-to-Sunbelt flow. Significant net migration exchange takes place within each of the major regions of the U.S. as well as between them. Principal component analyses carried out on gross state-to-state flow tables for 1960–1965, 1965–1970, and 1970–1975 suggest the existence of a set of remarkably stable migration subsystems, despite the heralded net migration turnarounds in nonmetropolitan-to-metropolitan and south-to-north patterns of flow.

Population forecasting and local economic planning: The limits on community control over uncertainty

Forecasting, planning, and controls are all attempts to cope with uncertainty about the future. The reasons that forecasts err are examined, and the limits of technical solutions are discussed. The beneficial planning uses of even error-prone forecasts are outlined, and it is argued that the concept of forecast accuracy is a basic contradiction of the essence of planning. The potential for local economic planning and community control over uncertainty is examined. Its major determinant is the economic context in which a community finds itself, but the enhanced mobility of firms over the last two decades has restricted the ability of communities to plan. Implications for forecasters, model builders, and local planners are discussed.