According to recent data from The Census Bureau, around 50 million Americans live in rural areas which are plagued by dwindling economic opportunities, high poverty rates and persistent population decline. The fact that fewer rural residents are moving to urban areas for work, which has been a traditional route to prosperity for generations of rural residents, leaves many stuck in stagnating communities.
According to Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks corporate subsidies, companies in Ohio have received $4.4 billion in local and state tax incentives since 1983. More than 10,000 awards have been made with a third of the sum going to 10 large corporations, including Amazon for local fulfillment and distribution centers built around the state.
Dr. Elena Irwin, Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (AEDE) and the Faculty Director of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State, was selected as one of four Distinguised Professors of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. She received her Award Medallian January 10, 2020 at the College Staff Award Ceremony.
Nationally, Ohio ranks 15th in per pupil spending. Even though Ohio does a better job than almost all other states in directing school funding to poor and minority students, a new study by researchers with The Ohio State University’s C. William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy shows there is still much to be done to achieve funding adequacy and equity across school districts in Ohio.
AEDE faculty, PhD Students and Candidates, past and present recently attended the 65th Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International. Most presented current work and many took home top prizes.
Sarah Fischer, a spring Ohio State graduate, became interested in sustainable international development as a high school student, when she learned that her French teacher’s husband was a former child slave in Haiti. Working with the nonprofit organization that he started to free other child slaves, she learned how deforestation and lack of environmental education contribute to poverty in developing countries such as Haiti.
“At some point, I realized that it doesn't really make sense for us to go into other countries to tell them how to do things when we have so many environmental problems in the United States,” says Fischer, who received her degree in environment, economy, development and sustainability (EEDS). “So I began researching what our largest challenges were, and that’s how I got interested in promoting sustainability, specifically in the transportation and energy sectors.”
AEDE Professor Mark Partridge delivered the Regional Science Association International’s Fellows Plenary Lecture “Follow the Money: Aggregate, Sectoral and Spatial Effects of an Energy Boom on Local Earnings.”
AEDE Graduate student Daniel Crown was a Finalist of the 2017 North American Regional Science Council Student-Led Paper Competition for his paper titled "High-Skilled Immigration and the Skill Composition of Native Workers," coauthored with Alessandra Faggian.