Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Spatial Analysis Of Poverty And Income Inequality In The Appalachian Region, Sudiksha Joshi, Tesfa Gebremedhin

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

The Appalachian Region has made progress in the various measures of development but still lags behind other national counterparts. Understanding the relationship between poverty and income inequality is important to evaluate how a development strategy would benefit the region. This paper presents a spatial simultaneous equations approach to determine the relationship between poverty and income inequality. Cross sectional county level data from 1990 and 2000 for the 420 counties in the Appalachian Region are used to examine the determinants of poverty and income inequality. The empirical results suggest that poverty and income inequality are inversely related. If the policy objective …