The Effect of Natural Resource Dependence on Economic Prosperity in Rural America
Open Access
- Author:
- Mueller, Joel Thomas
- Graduate Program:
- Rural Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 12, 2019
- Committee Members:
- Ann Rachel Tickamyer, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Ann Rachel Tickamyer, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Kathryn Jo Brasier, Committee Member
Alan R Graefe, Outside Member
Brian Clemens Thiede, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Kathryn Jo Brasier, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Natural Resources
Poverty
Development
Resource Curse
Resource Dependence
Rural
Tourism
Economic Development
Spatial Econometrics
Theory
United States - Abstract:
- This dissertation provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of rural natural resource dependence in the United States from 2000 to 2015. In the first paper, I ground natural resource dependence within sociological theory surrounding spatially uneven development and dependency by arguing natural resource dependence represents a special case of economic dependency where natural resource development leads to exploitation from both extractive (e.g. coal, timber, mining) and non-extractive (e.g. tourism, amenities) interests. This is due to the contradiction between the spatially fixed nature of natural resources and the need for capital to be in motion. In the second paper, I test the impact of extractive and non-extractive natural resource development on per capita income, poverty, and inequality from 2000 to 2015. Results support the hypothesis that high levels of both forms of development result in negative impacts to economic prosperity, but not necessarily as expected. Low levels of extractive development were associated with higher per capita income, lower inequality, and lower poverty—--with only high levels of development resulting in negative outcomes. This is contrasted by non-extractive development which was associated with lower per capita income across the range of predicted values, as well as no having no effect on inequality or poverty. These findings provide a considerable rebuke of the discourse promoting rural tourism and amenity development as a path for sustainable economic development in rural America. In the final paper, I begin by formally defining natural resource dependence as over-specialization in the natural resource sectors. From this definition I present an ideal typology and classification scheme for rural counties in the United States. The typology has two dimensions—the level of development and the level of economic prosperity—and six mutually exclusive categories—extractive specialized, extractive dependent, non-extractive specialized, non-extractive dependent, hybrid specialized, and hybrid dependent. I classify counties from 2000 to 2015 and find that extractive dependence decreased over the study period while non-extractive dependence increased. This typology and classification scheme will provide useful insight for identifying where socioeconomic problems may arise, as well as how to best solve them through context-specific economic development policy.