Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Profiling Rural America: A Guide To Data Sources And Analytical Techniques, Sheila A. Martin, Richard Mchugh

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

Evaluating the economic conditions of local economies is an important input to the decisions of policymakers, firms, and individuals. General impressions of the condition of national or state economies obtained from aggregate data often mask important subs tate differences in economic performance.

State economic profiles are useful tools for presenting the dynamics of substate economic change. Because their economic conditions and environments can be very different, rural and urban areas are often compared in such profiles.

This report describes the major components of a complete economic profile, with special emphasis on rural-urban comparisons. A catalog of data sources and a …

Measuring Dynamic Patterns In The Structure Of Substate Economies, Richard Mchugh, Ronald Cooper, Sheila A. Martin, Daniel Otto, Stanley R. Johnson

Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies Publications

The objective of this study was to explore a new method of analyzing the performance of substate economies. A major limitation of conventional analyses of economic diversity and growth is the reliance on static measures of economic structure. Such measures do not capture the patterns of growth dynamics or structural change the region may be experiencing.

This paper discusses a new measure of dynamic economic diversity and explores its relationship to economic performance. The measure is a statistical index that reflects the degree to which employment in a county's industries move together over time. The more the industries' employment levels …