Search Results
Working Paper
The Pitfalls of Using Location Quotients to Identify Clusters and Represent Industry Specialization in Small Regions
This paper examines the use of location quotients, a measure of regional business activity relative to the national benchmark, as an indicator of sectoral agglomeration in small cities and towns, and as a measure of industry specialization that might impact the number of new business startups in these places. Using establishment-level data on businesses located in Maine, our findings suggest that the addition of one "hypothetical" establishment in very small towns leads to a dramatic change in the magnitude of the region-industry location quotient. At population sizes of about 4,100 or more ...
Journal Article
New from the Richmond Fed’s Regional Matters blog
Briefing
Declining access to health care in northern New England
Access to health care is a major concern across the northern New England states?Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont?where rising operating costs and population loss threaten the stability of hospitals and other medical facilities that serve their surrounding rural communities. New analysis of financial data shows that many rural hospitals are operating at losses that are predictive of financial distress or even closure. Consequently, the communities served by these hospitals may be at risk of losing the benefits they provide to public health and the local economy. Addressing the financial ...
Discussion Paper
Shifting Rurality: Is it Possible to Increase Population and Become More Rural?
In January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS) released the 2023 update of the Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCCs), resulting in changes for many counties, including those in the Fifth District. The USDA-ERS developed the nine-code classification system in 1974 to identify a county's level of rurality based on its degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metro area: RUCC 1 is the least rural, and RUCC 9 is the most rural. Following each decennial census, the USDA-ERS does a full update of the RUCCs to reflect population and metro/nonmetro area changes. ...
Journal Article
Employment Barriers in the Rural Fifth District
In Virginia, 75 percent of working-age adults are employed, in line with the national average of 74 percent. But there are significant disparities across geographies. In Loudoun County, Va., in the Washington, D.C., metro area, the share is 84.1 percent. On the other side of the state, in Lee County, just 48.2 percent of working-age adults are employed. This is true of many socioeconomic indicators: Aggregation is necessary to understand broad outcomes, but with aggregation, we lose important geographic distinctions and, thus, the opportunity to identify both challenges and solutions. This is ...
Newsletter
Higher Home Prices and Higher Rates Mean Bigger Affordability Hurdles for the U.S. Consumer
In the U.S., homeownership is often described as part of the “American dream,” a way for consumers to accumulate wealth and gain other economic benefits. Almost two out of three U.S. households own the home they live in, a relatively stable amount over the last decade. Buying a home is usually the largest investment that a consumer will make, and the purchase price usually far exceeds what most can afford out of their current savings. In 2022, roughly 70% of home purchases were made with the help of mortgage financing.
Discussion Paper
Are Labor Shortages in Small Cities and Rural Areas Worse Than Urban Ones?
In the past, the Richmond Fed has reported about the difficulty of businesses finding workers with the right skills. In conversations with business leaders across the Fifth District, we have heard about labor availability challenges across all geographies: in large urban centers, small cities, and rural areas. This post examines how labor availability differs between small cities and rural areas versus large urban centers. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic made it harder for firms in small cities and rural areas to find workers compared to firms in urban areas. Perhaps because of the ...
Discussion Paper
Barriers to Rural Investment
Investment is a critical part of any healthy, growing economy, but the geography of investment can be uneven. Rural areas can face a particularly acute mismatch between the various actors supplying community development investment (supply-side barriers) and communities seeking investment dollars (demand-side barriers).
Briefing
Can Immigration Help Boost Rural Economies in the Fifth District and Beyond
We examine the role of immigration in rural areas. While immigrants tend to concentrate in urban areas, rural areas also significantly benefit from immigration. Agricultural firms, for example, need to hire many immigrants to help with harvesting crops. Past restrictions to immigration in rural areas haven't proven to be very effective in boosting native worker employment in these areas. First, firms respond to such restrictions by investing in new technologies at the expense of labor. Also, native workers seem unwilling to take many jobs in rural areas, which makes immigrants particularly ...
Newsletter
What is driving the differences in inflation across U.S. regions?
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across U.S. regions. Looking independently at the impact of consumption patterns and inflation by expenditure categories, we find that recent gaps across regions have existed largely because of different regional inflation rates for the housing category. Yet we also find that overall inflation is very highly correlated across regions.