Impact Evaluation of Investments in the Appalachian Region: A Reappraisal

We evaluate the impact of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s investments on its members counties over almost fifty years. We apply different propensity score methods to find the most appropriate matching and to identify the effect of policy implementation in the most accurate way possible. The general evidence is that counties that received ARC funding had higher per-capita income growth compared to the control counties. Per-capita income growth rate in ARC counties grew an average of 5.5 percent over the entire study time period compared to the control counties. Employment grew significantly faster in ARC counties compared to the control counties for most of the study period. The average difference in growth rates between the counties that obtained ARC investments and those matched counties that did not receive ARC investments was approximately 4.2 percent.

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