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Title: Reexamining Rural Decline: How Changing Rural Classifications and Short Time Frames

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2005

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Abstract: Beale codes are an important tool for examining rural urban differences in socioeconomictrends. However, as population changes, counties designations also change over time. Thisfeature of Beale codes is commonly overlooked by researchers, yet it has important implicationsfor understanding rural growth. Since the fastest growing counties grow out of their rural status,use of the most recent codes excludes the most successful rural counties. Average economicperformance of the counties remaining rural significantly understates the true performance ofrural counties. This paper illustrates that choice of Beale code can alter conclusions regardingthe relative speed of rural and urban growth across a variety of commonly used social andeconomic indicators. The bias can alter conclusions regarding the magnitude and even the signof factors believed to influence growth. Most strikingly, the estimated impact of human capitalon rural growth is completely reversed when the sample is based on end-of-period rather thanstart-of-period rural status. The use of short time frames such as a single decade to evaluaterelative growth across counties can also yield misleading inferences. Therefore, bothacademicians and policy-makers must be careful to use appropriate Beale code designations andtime frames in evaluating prescriptions for rural growth.

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Authors: Orazem, Peter F.; Artz, Georgeanne M.

Conference Name: American Agricultural Economics

Publisher Location: Providence, Rhode Island

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other

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