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The impacts of employment in the coal industry remain controversial. Few studies have investigated these impacts over the decade of the great recession and in light of the nation's changing energy economy. We bring together two long-standing rural sociological traditions to address debates framed at the national level and for Appalachian communities facing the throes of transition from the coal industry. Building from rural sociology's "poverty and place" tradition and from natural resources sociology, we examine the relationship between coal employment and communities' economic well-being as indicated by poverty, household income, and unemployment. The study spans U.S. and Appalachian counties from 1990 to 2010. U.S. counties with greater coal employment in 1990 had lower income and higher poverty in 2000. Overall, however, coal employment's effect is mixed in the 1990-2000 decade. By contrast, for the recent 2000-2010 decade, coal employment is positively associated with indicators of well-being. In Appalachia, fewer employment alternatives outside mining are related to higher well-being. Our findings extend the poverty and place literature and the natural resources literature and underscore why a just transition away from coal should focus on moving communities toward sectors offering better future livelihoods. * This study was partially supported by the Appalachian Research Initiative for Environmental Science (ARIES). ARIES is an industrial affiliates program at Virginia Tech, supported by members that include companies in the energy sector. The research under ARIES is conducted by independent researchers in accordance with the policies on scientific integrity of their institutions. The views, opinions, and recommendations expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not imply any endorsement by ARIES employees, other ARIES-affiliated researchers, or industrial members. This study has not been read or reviewed by ARIES officials. Information about ARIES can be found at

U.S. states and localities often engage in economic development policies using incentives and abatements for specific firms or industries. Yet, there is very little empirical evidence suggesting that such policies are successful. Why, then, do governments engage in these policies? In order to answer this question, we employ a model that considers not only geographic and economic factors, but also, in a novel application, local political conditions. A unique survey of U.S. county governments forms the basis for our empirical assessment of both traditional economic development policies and new‐wave policies. Using probit, Poisson, negative binomial, and spatial econometric models, we find evidence that the use of incentives is inversely related to local economic conditions. Furthermore, we find Republican counties are more apt to use incentives, though counties dominated by one political party are less likely to use them.

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Regional policy‐makers have long sought to attract highly‐educated workers with a view to stimulating economic growth and vibrancy. Previous studies over the decades leading up to the new millennium show human capital divergence across cities, where the share of college graduates grew faster in cities that had larger initial shares of college‐educated workers. However, labour markets have changed significantly post‐2000, likely affecting migration decisions of highly‐skilled workers. Additionally, past studies have not controlled for important changes in industry education levels and overall industry composition that may influence city‐level college graduate growth. We use detailed 4‐digit NAICS industry employment data combined with public micro‐data to construct measures of industry skill upgrading and changes in industry composition to control for their effects on human capital growth. We find agglomeration forces, rather than initial graduate share, explains college‐graduate share growth post‐2000. We also decompose graduates into bachelors and postgraduate degree holders to determine whether different forces are at play on growth of graduates at different education levels.