Jobs for the Heartland: Place-Based Policies in 21st-Century America
研究发现美国地区经济趋同放缓，长期非就业率甚至分化；劳动需求增加对历史上非就业率高的地区就业影响更大，因此在这些地区补贴就业可能降低非就业率，并建议针对就业弹性高的地区实施促进就业政策。
The economic convergence of U.S. regions has slowed greatly, and rates of long-term nonemployment have even been diverging. Simultaneously, the rate of nonemployment for working age men has nearly tripled over the last 50 years, generating a social problem that is disproportionately centered in the eastern parts of the American heartland. Should more permanent economic divisions across space lead U.S. economists to rethink their traditional skepticism about place-based policies? We document that increases in labor demand appear to have greater effects on employment in areas where not working has been historically high, suggesting that subsidizing employment in such places could reduce the rate of not working. Proemployment policies, such as a ramped-up Earned Income Tax Credit, that are targeted toward regions with more elastic employment responses, however financed, could plausibly reduce suffering and materially improve economic performance.