Does Agriculture Generate Local Economic Spillovers? Short-Run and Long-Run Evidence from the Ogallala Aquifer

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hornbeck, Richard; Keskin, Pinar
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Wellesley College
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20130077
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 192-213
• 关键词: tradable water rights; IMPACT; MARKETS; groundwater; population; transfers; colorado; valley

摘要

Agriculture may support the local nonagricultural economy in rural areas, though agricultural expansion may also crowd-out nonagricultural activity. On the United States Plains, areas over the Ogallala aquifer experienced windfall agricultural gains when post-WWII technologies increased farmers' access to groundwater. Comparing counties over the Ogallala with similar counties, nonagricultural sectors experienced only short-run relative benefits. Despite substantial and persistent agricultural gains, there was no long-run relative expansion of nonagricultural sectors in Ogallala counties. Agricultural development may still encourage regional or national nonagricultural development, but agriculture does not appear to generate local economic spillovers that differentially encourage local nonagricultural activity.