Farm Prices, Energy Prices and Rural Income in the U.S

Abstract

Central place theory and economic base theory are used to specify a modelthat describes rural personal income in the U.S. OLS regressions using annual 1969-2005data show that rural income is significantly determined by metropolitan personal incomeand farm prices, as well as energy prices. The parity index performs slightly better thanfarm prices in describing rural income. (R12, Q18, J21, Q43)