Research Accomplishment Reports 2008

Rural Change: Markets, Governance and Quality of Life

D. Freshwater, D. Debertin, A. Davis
Department of Agricultural Economics

 

Non-Technical Summary

Research will examine the role of labor market policy as it affects the supply and demand of workers in rural areas. A specific example of the work will be an analysis of local labor markets in rural Newfoundland and their adaptation to economic change. In many rural areas there is a considerable mismatch between the number of jobs and the number of workers. This can reflect an excess supply of workers or it may indicate a skill mismatch that can be resolved through training programs and targeted recruitment of firms.

Project Description

Objective 1: Developed a report analyzing how Active Labor Market Policy (ALMP) can be used as a component of rural development policy. The report reviews a number of evaluation studies of ALMP and shows that ALMP when applied at the local labor market level complements traditional rural economic strategies. A second paper, jointly developed with Alvin Simms, looks at commuting patterns of fish plant workers in rural Newfoundland but the methodology is easily extended to improve our understanding of labor market participation decisions by rural residents.

Objective 3: Developed a background report on the relative strengths of agricultural policy and land use policy as ways to limit farmland conversion in different types of rural areas, particularly the urban-rural fringe.

Impact

The ALMP paper was presented to senior provincial government officials in Newfoundland and is being used as input into a new workforce development strategy. It is also being used as a methodological base for a master's thesis in the Department of Geography at Memorial University that will examine the effectiveness of wage subsidies to rural employers.

The fish plant commuting paper was presented at professional meetings and is being used to help develop a new set of regional boundaries based upon local labor markets that will be used by the Newfoundland government to define economic development priorities.

The land use paper was developed for the joint working party of the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The paper is being used as part of a larger analysis of a project on land use management requested by the member countries.

Publications

Freshwater, David. 2008. Maintaining Farmland: A New Focus for Agricultural Policy in C. Cahill ed. Multifunctionality in Agriculture: Evaluating the Degree of Jointness, Policy Implications. OECD: Paris.