Tax incentives by state and local governments to attract industrial development are undergoing another round of public criticism in the news media. There are those who argue that any form of economic incentive in an attempt to entice businesses to locate in a particular state or community is...

The slides that follow provide an introduction to rural economic development and public policy. I have scanned the original slides and inserted them into modern PDF and PowerPoint presentations. Some of the hand-made charts have older data, but could be easily updated. These color slides were...

In this paper, we define social capital from different perspectives and show how it is linked to the concept of a community. Based on these definitions, a conceptual framework for analyzing and measuring social capital and its indicators is developed. A typology for analyzing social capital is...

This is a new version of a series of color slides on social capital as presented at a conference on rural development presented in Tampa, Florida in 2004, and sponsored by the Southern Rural Development Center.