It is well known that an amenity is a key driving engine to regional economic growth. However, the site-specific nature of an amenity can characterize them as public goods. Due to this characteristic, local governments have difficulty optimally supplying amenities. This dissertation tries to find relationships between an amenity and economic growth. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation.
The findings of the meta-analysis in the first essay suggest little methodological diversity exists among researchers linking amenities to economic growth., I do find that employment growth is more likely related to man-made amenities even in research on rural areas than natural amenities. Further, incorporating spatial estimators into amenity research improves modeling performance while reducing the net impact of amenities on economic growth.
The second essay indicates a distinctive distribution between man-made amenities and natural amenities over counties of the United States. While man-made amenities are agglomerated in urban areas, natural amenities show heterogeneous dispersion. Both agricultural land and conservation land show an inverse relationship to man-made amenities across space. From an analysis using a local governments public policy along with an areas physical attributes, I find government tax policy having the greatest effect on film location decisions with natural amenities having little impact.
The third essay analyzed the impact of a tax incentive program targeted to film industries on local economies using a quasi-experimental approach. This last essay provided three findings. First, this chapter found meaningful methodological specifications that should be considered in regional studies using a quasi-experimental approach. They are appropriate consideration of control periods, spatial units of comparison, and validities of dummy variables representing extraneous shocks. Second, the impact of the film industry tax program on local economies is insignificant for most industries. Third, the influence of tax subsidy policy on local economies is limited to a central area but is not beneficial to its adjacent areas.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04162010-111826 |
| Date | 19 April 2010 |
| Creators | Hong, Junpyo |
| Contributors | Stephenson, Daniel O. IV., Lam, Nina S., Westra, John V., Keithly, Walter R. Jr., Kazmierczak, Richard F., Fannin, James Matthew |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04162010-111826/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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