Archive for Economic Development, Resilience, and Innovation
Rural Development Implications One Year After COVID
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching impacts on most sectors of the U.S. economy, and these impacts have been uneven across rural and urban areas. On the one hand, rural areas were already lagging behind urban areas in many sectors before the pandemic (Ajilore and Willingham, 2019; U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2018), including in terms of educational attainment, access to health care and broadband, and general economic progress (e.g., Dobis et al. 2020; Goetz, Partridge, and Stephens, 2018). On the other hand, lower rural population density and greater reliance on personal as opposed to public transportation likely reduced the rural populations’ exposure to the virus (Goetz et al., 2020). This special theme issue of Choices was commissioned by the Council on Food, Agriculture and Resource Economics (C-FARE) to examine how COVID-19 affected rural areas and prepared in collaboration with the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development on behalf of the Regional Rural Development Centers (RRDCs).
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Jane Kolodinsky
Publication: Choices Magazine Date Published: April 1, 2021
Tags: COVID-19
Americans’ Food Spending Patterns Explain Devastating Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Agriculture
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service’s Food Expenditures by Outlet data provide insight as to why the lockdowns related to COVID-19 have been so devastating for U.S. farmers.
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Claudia Schmidt, Lisa Chase, Jane Kolodinsky
Publication: Journal of Food Systems, Agriculture, and Community Development Date Published: May 21, 2020
Nonmetro COVID-19 Case Growth Higher in Metro-Adjacent Counties, but Case-Fatality Ratio is Lower so Far
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-8: This brief, published in May 2020, offered a snapshot of COVID-19 cases by county type.
Authors: Zheng Tian, Stephan J. Goetz, L. Goetz-Weiss
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: May 5, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
Google Searches Predict Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-5: The COVID-19 pandemic produced historically unprecedented numbers of layoffs, leading to surges in the number of unemployment filings: over 26 million Americans have filed claims for unemployment benefits (New York Times, 4/23/2020). In this brief we show how Google Trends searches predated or anticipated these filings, and how they were propagated across the different states as the coronavirus took its toll.
Authors: Zheng Tian and Stephan J. Goetz
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: May 1, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
Rural Broadband Investment Urgently Needed in the COVID-19 Crisis
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-6 – Issued jointly with the Regional Rural Development. By S.J. Goetz, H.M. Stephens, S.J. Rocker, R. Welborn, S. Turner, D. Albrecht and M. Skidmore, April 28, 2020.
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Heather M. Stephens, Sarah J. Rocker, Rachel Welborn, Steven Turner, Don Albrecht, and Mark Skidmore
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: April 28, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
Small and Minority Farmers’ Knowledge and Resource Sharing Networks, and Farm Sales: Findings from Communities in Tennessee, Maryland, and Delaware
A network analysis can quantify the depth and breadth of a farmer’s relationships with other local farmers, buyers and sellers, or other groups and organizations. Such an analysis can potentially also reveal farmers’ incentives, situations, and behaviors, and it may explain their economic success more generally. This study examines small and minority farmers’ networks using a primary survey in three farming communities. We emphasize networks related to production, marketing, and resource-sharing activities of 127 farmers (nodes) in Tennessee, 46 in Maryland, and 23 in Delaware, and compute three different measures of network importance or “centrality” for each farmer. We then use generalized least squares analysis relating farmer’s age, gender, race, educational attainment, labor use on the farm, and farm location to the farmer’s centrality position or importance in the network, defined by number and strength of links or connections. In additional regression analyses, we find significantly positive effects of the centrality position on farm sales of specialty crops: our model predicts that a farmer who adds one additional link or connection can expect a 19% to 25% increase in sales, all else equal. Our results can potentially be used not only to disseminate information more efficiently, but also to identify farmers who would benefit the most from more targeted extension services.
Authors: Aditya R. Khanal, Fisseha Tegegne, Stephan J. Goetz, Lan Li, Yicheol Han, Stephan Tubene, Andy Wetherill
Publication: Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development Date Published: April 17, 2020
Social Capital May Increase Social Distancing
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-4. This brief examines whether a community’s level of “social capital” may predict or be associated with greater adherence to social distancing requirements within U.S. counties during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: April 15, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
Rural COVID-19 Cases Lag Urban Areas but Are Growing Much More Rapidly
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-3: This brief examines data on COVID-19 cases by county type as of April 2020.
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz, Zheng Tian, Claudia Schmidt and Devon Meadowcroft
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: April 9, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
COVID-19, Networks and Regional Science
NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief No. 2020-2: This brief explores network and regional science in the context of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also was published as an essay in the June 2020 newsletter of the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC).
Authors: Stephan J. Goetz
Publication: NERCRD COVID-19 Issues Brief Series Date Published: April 1, 2020
Tags: COVID-19, COVID-19 Data Brief
Religiosity and Regional Resilience to Recession
Literature shows that religiosity can provide individual resilience to life shocks as well as regional resilience to disasters caused by natural hazards. Related work has examined the complicated links between religion and economic growth. Yet few, if any, studies examine the role of regional levels of religiosity on a region’s resilience to recession—or how quickly the employment rate returns to pre-recession levels (a common measure of resilience in the economics literature). As the recovery period of the Great Recession cools and economists warn of future economic downturns, all known variables that may be linked with regional resilience are worthy of exploration. Using survey results from the Gosling-Potter Internet Project and General Social Surveys, we applied logarithmic functions to pre- and post-Great Recession employment data for 2,836 U.S. counties. We found a modest and statistically significant association between religious belief and regional resilience to recession. Religiosity was the strongest of sixteen psychosocial variables that we examined in association with the speed of job recovery; despite having negative links with other economic variables. This has particular salience for more rural economies; policy implications are discussed.
Authors: Raphael E. Cuomo, Daniel B. Davis, Stephan J. Goetz, Josh D. Shapiro, Mary L. Walshok
Publication: Risk, Hazards, and Crisis in Public Policy Date Published: March 23, 2020