Small Town Economies Research Articles

Placing entrepreneurship and firming small town economies: manufacturing firms, adaptive embeddedness, survival and linked enterprise structures

ABSTRACTSMEs make a major contribution to the economy of cities and places. The relationship between firms and place is increasingly explained through the application of city-based externality models. Such explanations have limited validity in a number of contexts. One of these is in the economies of small- and medium-sized towns and communities (SMST). Whilst convention has sought to apply core-periphery explanations to the functioning of firms within SMSTs, the economies of SMSTs and entrepreneurial processes of SME embedding, adaptation and survival in such places are more complex. This paper explores these entrepreneurial processes in the context of manufacturing firms in five SMSTs in the West Midlands, UK. The paper uses interview data to understand the relationships between SMEs and place through the development of successive and evolving linked enterprise structures. Through these linked enterprise structures, SMEs engage in a process of adaptive embeddedness, resulting in new resource configurations through fluid iterations of structural, emotional, and circumstantial embeddedness. This paper is the first to identify and explore these different forms of embeddedness.

Beyond dualism: Agricultural productivity, small towns, and structural change in Bangladesh

This paper uses a framework that goes beyond rural-urban dualism and highlights the role of small-town economy in understanding structural change in a developing country. It provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of agricultural productivity in structural transformation in the labor market in small towns and the surrounding rural areas. The empirical work is based on a general equilibrium model that formalizes the demand and labor market linkages: the small-town draws labor away from the rural areas to produce goods and services whose demand may depend largely on rural income. The theory clarifies the role played by the income elasticity of demand and the elasticity of wage with respect to productivity increase in agriculture. For productivity growth to lead to a demand effect, the wage elasticity has to be lower than a threshold. When the demand for goods and services produced in small towns comes mainly from the adjacent rural areas, the demand effect can outweigh the negative wage effect and lead to higher employment in the town-goods sector. The empirical analysis finds a significant positive effect of higher rainfall on rice yield and wages. Using rainfall shocks as a source of exogenous variation, we provide instrumental variables estimates of the effects of agricultural productivity on agricultural wages. The increase in wages is larger in the rural sample compared with the small town economy sample, but structural change in employment is more pronounced in the small town economy. In the rural sample, the positive employment effect is observed only in small-scale manufacturing and services. In contrast, a positive productivity shock in small towns sample has large and positive effect on employment in large scale manufacturing and services (construction, transport, education, and health). Agricultural productivity growth induces structural transformation within the services sector in small towns, with employment in skilled services growing at a faster pace than that in low skilled services.

Bridging the Distance: Common Issues of the Rural West ed. by David B. Danbom

Reviewed by: Bridging the Distance: Common Issues of the Rural West ed. by David B. Danbom J. L. Anderson David B. Danbom, ed., Bridging the Distance: Common Issues of the Rural West. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2015. 312 pp. $30.00. Bridging the Distance brings together scholars from multiple disciplines to reckon with the issue of the vast space of the rural West. The authors in the collection represent fields as diverse as journalism, law, geography, public health, and history, to name just a few. They engage the history of energy industry, broadband access, small town economies, the Sagebrush Rebellion and more. The collection was born at a conference sponsored by the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. To his credit, editor David Danbom has forged those widely divergent approaches and disciplines into a collection that delivers on its promise to show how the expansiveness of the rural West has been a challenge not only for westerners but also for scholars who attempt to make sense of it. Each of the essays engage the topic of bridging physical or cultural distance. Of course, it is impossible to convey a full sense of the ten essays in the book, so a few highlights will suffice. Jon Lauck demonstrates how the West has figured in the historical imagination as well as the importance of regionalism. Historian David Rich Lewis traces the divide between Utah [End Page 89] officials and the Goshute as well as among Goshutes over the suitability and desire for economic development a temporary storage facility for nuclear waste in Skull Valley. State officials went to great lengths to undermine the native decision to bring hazardous waste into Skull Valley even as the state welcomed other toxic waste, some of it more toxic than that proposed by the Goshutes. In an essay on the reporting of a small-town scandal in Colorado, journalism professor Judy Miller describes the importance of the distance between insider and outsider in news reporting. In other essays, readers learn how water and wolves divide communities as well as how rural Hispanics have disproportionately poor health outcomes compared to their urban counterparts and the general population. The collection succeeds in large part because the multidiscipline case-study approach effectively conveys the complexity of the region. Furthermore, every one of the essays directly relates to the issue of distance. Readers learn how rural westerners overcame some problems associated with distance and how they failed to resolve many other problems. Scholars interested in addressing the common issues of the Midwest should pay close attention to Bridging the Distance and draw inspiration from its success. J. L. Anderson Mount Royal University Calgary, Alberta Copyright © 2018 Paul Mokrzycki Renfro

Beyond Dualism: Agricultural Productivity, Small Towns, and Structural Change in Bangladesh

This paper uses a framework that goes beyond rural-urban dualism and highlights the role of small town economy (STE) in understanding structural change in a rural economy such as Bangladesh. It provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of agricultural productivity in structural transformation in the labor market, with a focus on the differences between a village economy and a small town economy. The empirical work is based on a general equilibrium model that formalizes the demand and labor market linkages: the STE draws labor away from the rural areas to produce goods and services whose demand may depend largely on rural income. The theory clarifies the role played by the income elasticity of demand and the elasticity of wage with respect to productivity increase in agriculture. For productivity growth to lead to a demand effect, the elasticity of wage has to be lower than a threshold. When the demand for goods and services produced in small towns comes mainly from the adjacent rural areas, the demand effect can more than offset the negative wage effect and lead to higher labor allocation to the production of town good. Using rainfall as an instrument for agricultural productivity, the empirical analysis finds a significant positive effect of agricultural productivity shock on rice yield and agricultural wages. The evidence shows that productivity shock increases wages more in the rural sample when compared to the STE sample. But structural change in employment is more pronounced in the STE sample. In the rural sample, it increases employment only in small scale manufacturing and services. In contrast, a positive productivity shock has large and positive impacts on employment in construction and transport, education, health and other services, and manufacturing employment in larger scale enterprises located in small towns and cities. Agricultural productivity growth is found to induce structural transformation within the services sector in small towns, with employment in skilled services growing at a faster pace than that of low-skilled services.

Wybrane ośrodki turystyczne w Sudetach jako lokalne rynki pracy

The main subject of this paper is to analyse the influence of tourism on local economies of small towns functioning as tourist centres. The analysis was carried out on the example of 8 small towns in Lower Silesia (Duszniki Zdrój, Karpacz, Kudowa Zdrój, Lądek Zdrój, Polanica Zdrój, Szczawno Zdrój, Szklarska Poręba and Świeradów Zdrój). The mentioned tourist centres have great economic potential, but their economies are based on large amount of small and very small business entities from the service branch. The specificity of local labour markets in the case of tourist centres can be described by stability of the labour market in the range of the number of workers, marked significance of exogenous functions, advantage of the number of job places over the number of dwelling places, and the existence of the local zones of intensive commuting to work, comprising few communes neighbouring the given town.

Study on Environmental Protection Planning of Datong Town in Daqing

With development of small towns, the shortage of water resources and deterioration of water environment, soil and water loss, low vegetation coverage problem is becoming more and more serious, the ecological environment of small town is more and more pressure, restricting the development of small town economy and society is increasingly clear. Because a plan for environmental protection is a basic work of environmental remediation, so a rational environmental planning will speed up local economy and urban development. Firstly, the paper evaluates the status of water environment, atmospheric environment, acoustic environment and solid waste discharge. Secondly, the paper sets Datong town environmental protection planning target and divides the environmental function. Final, the paper proposes the effective measures to synthetically managing the rural environment, developing and utilizing the rural energy, Protecting and building the agricultural ecological environment.

Role of Services in the Economies of Small Towns of Silesia Region and Wielkopolskie Voivodehip

Role of Services in the Economies of Small Towns of Silesia Region and Wielkopolskie Voivodehip The main aim of the article is to determine the role of services in the economies of small towns of Silesia and Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) regions. It will be achieved through the following steps: (A) characteristic of the set of towns under study, (B) determination of the share of services in their economies, and (C) description of their level of service development. The analysis rests on two criteria employed at each stage of the research: (a) that of location, which embraces the voivodships: Dolnośląskie, Opolskie, Śląskie (Silesia region) and Wielkopolskie voivodship and (b) that of size, with three classes of small towns distinguished: up to 5 thousand, 5-10 thousand, and 10-20 thousand population.

Economic decline and gentrification in a small town: the business sector in Aberdeen, Eastern Cape

Small towns are a neglected topic of study but they are gaining importance in South Africa because of rapid urbanisation. This paper discusses a case study of business development and gentrification in Aberdeen, a small town in the Eastern Cape's Karoo. Although there has been a long-term decline in Aberdeen's economy, major changes are now taking place that call for more focused development policies. The findings of a 2006 business survey in Aberdeen are presented here and integrated with findings from the international literature on small town development. The paper shows that endogenous development of a small town's economy by its business sector can lead to some local economic growth; however, it needs to be assisted by judicious government investment. Aberdeen's economy will need a stronger level of municipal guidance to exploit its strengths and overcome its limitations.

Making Plans against All Odds : LED in Small Towns of the Free State Province, South Africa

Since the transition to democracy, there has been an increasing emphasis on local economic development (LED) in South Africa. The LED efforts in three small municipalities of the Free State Province are examined against the international framework for LED planning and implementation. Often, LED is limited to numerous small capital projects and that it is neither regarded as an integral part of all projects nor directed at addressing the real structural problems associated with the economies of small towns. Moreover, in most cases they are not sustainable, but are dependent on constant funding. Local municipalities could make a bigger impact on the local economy, by considering LED as an integral part of service delivery and functioning. Africa Insight Vol. 38 (1) 2008: pp. 53-66

Marginalisation and demographic change in the semi-arid Karoo, South Africa

Semi-arid areas are often considered to be environmentally and economically marginal, a situation which has been exacerbated by economic change, shifts in agricultural production and land use, and changing state policy. These themes are explored with reference to a semi-arid landscape, namely the Karoo, which covers some 40% of the geographic space of South Africa and is used primarily for extensive livestock farming. Despite long-term decline in agricultural output, the traditional mainstay of the region, and weakening small town economies, the Karoo's population and the economies of its largest service centres are growing. There are, real socio-economic needs and development backlogs, and the situation has been exacerbated by recent political marginalisation. In this study, the small towns of the region are focal points of investigation and provide a lens to investigate the changing demographic and economic dynamics of the Karoo. Most of the region's population lives in these centres which are service, collection, and distribution points for what traditionally has been an agriculture-based regional economy. This paper explores the concept of marginalisation with specific reference to historical, economic, and demographic change.

Renewal of small town economies: the case of Alice, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Student Number : 0204446N - MA dissertation - School of Geography, Archaeology and Environment Studies - Faculty of Humanities

Focus on Rural Economic Development

Many rural communities desperate for economic development have turned to formerly resisted options, such as influencing the state to locate prisons in their area to revitalize their local economies. Without a vital economy, they fear a continuation of declining population and a diminished quality of life. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine the economic and demographic impact of new state prisons on small town economies compared to changes that occurred during the decade in all other small towns. The analysis shows that when 1990 economic and demographic factors and region are controlled, new state prison towns experienced less growth than non-prison towns except that prison towns had a greater increase in unemployment, poverty, and percent of minorities. The assumption that prisons represent a solution to distressed small town economies and a boost for community development should be reexamined by community leaders.

The Economic Impact of Retirees on Smaller Communities

Little is known about the economic impact of retirees despite the efforts being made to attract retirees in the hope of stimulating sluggish small town economies. A paradigm is required that grasps the various economic inputs and outputs in a community from a retirement population. The conventions of regional economics, especially those from community economic base and social accounts, provide the basis for such a paradigm. Retiree impacts can then be disaggregated into direct expenditures from personal incomes of retirees as well as from income contributed to the community to provide health care and other support services. This direct spending results in indirect impacts through a multiplier effect. The model is demonstrated with data obtained from retirees in three smaller communities. in British Columbia. Results indicate that retirees are an economic blessing for a smaller community.

Municipal Subsidies to Industries in Tennessee

Tennessee, like its sister states in the South, is liberally sprinkled with towns of between 2,00ooo and Io,ooo inhabitants, and nearly all are actively seeking factories. Hitherto, their business had been chiefly derived from the surrounding rural territory, but in the 192o's came an expansion of employment opportunities in large cities, a decline in rural buying power, and a growing tendency of rural people to drive over good highways to larger and more satisfactory trade centers. All of these struck heavy blows at the small town economy. Something seemed urgently needed to slow down the centrifugal attraction of large urban centers. The smaller towns in Tennessee are commonly county seats, built around a courthouse square. The buildings that line the square provide the most desirable business locations in town, and the owners and occupants of these properties are extremely sensitive to fluctuations in community prosperity. The natural compactness of the business district, and the attendant concentration of benefits from upturns in general business, tend to make quite active promoters out of the local merchants and businessmen. To these people, a decade or so ago, factory employment and pay rolls began to appeal with a new intensity as the most direct way out of business stagnation. Industrial promotion became the small town shibboleth; thousands of dollars were raised by private subscription and poured into development companies which built factory buildings for the casual occupancy of any operator that could be induced to come in. Later, although the economic depression cut sharply into the business capital available for