Download or read book Three Essays on Rural Economic Development and Housing written by Tyler John Morin and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Chapter 1, I explore the economics of rural place-based programs. Despite substantial funding going to regional economic development programs, little is known about the benefits of some of the smaller, place-based programs. I extend the literature on regional commissions by analyzing the economic gains to the Delta Regional Authority (DRA). The DRA was founded in 2000 to provide enhanced development aid to 252 lower Mississippi Valley counties. Using data from 1997 to 2016, the authors assess the DRA’s impact on employment, income, migration, and poverty. One-to-one propensity score matching is used to generate counterfactual counties. Due to the endogenous nature of the treatment, the authors instrument for counties being included in the DRA using a dummy for whether the county is within the lower Mississippi watershed. The ensuing results reflect an estimation of the intent-to-treat benefits of the DRA. I find that the DRA is associated with income gains and decreases in unemployment; however, it has no impact on poverty or migration. Chapter 2 explore the national state of rural housing affordability and quality. Rural areas have long lagged behind urban areas for at least a century. From declining rural populations, lower wages and poor economic outcomes, the slowing of economic growth has had multiple effects on these populations.