Rural broadband infrastructure and service has received a significant amount of funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. These funds should increase broadband availability, but will broadband be used in rural areas and in particular by farmers? This paper uses...

Outmigration and industrial composition have separately been the focal points of a significant amount of research related to nonmetropolitan counties; however, few (if any) studies have explicitly looked at the relationship between the two topics. The primary objective of this research is to...

This paper takes an empirical approach to determining the effect that a critical access hospital (CAH) has on local retail activity. Previous research on the relationship between hospitals and economic development has primarily focused on single-case, multiplier oriented analysis. The positive...

Rural communities suffer from both supply and demand-side disadvantages when dealing with Internet access. Telecommunications companies are less likely to provide them with needed infrastructure due to lower population densities, and they also tend to have lower levels of specific factors known...

This paper seeks to develop a methodology that will be useful for rural water districts in assessing the future of their water systems infrastructure. In particular, the use of free water simulation software and publicly available data on population, roads, and terrain present rural water...

Replaced with revised version of poster 07/20/10.

One commonly discussed benefit of broadband access in rural America is the potential for telemedicine visits that allow rural residents to take advantage of urbanized medical services. While the primary benefit of telemedicine is often viewed as improved health care access, the availability of...

One of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development’s most popular programs is the funding for public water and sewer infrastructure projects in rural communities. This article reviews the water and sewer infrastructure projects funded in the state of Oklahoma between 1990 and...