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The persistence of childhood poverty in the United States, a wealthy and developed country, continues to pose both an analytical dilemma and public policy challenge, despite many decades of research and remedial policy implementation. In this paper, our goals are twofold, though our primary focus is methodological. We attempt both to examine the relationship between space, time, and previously established factors correlated with childhood poverty at the county level in the continental United States as well as to provide an empirical case study to demonstrate an underutilized methodological approach. We analyze a spatially consistent dataset built from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses, and the 2006–2010 American Community Survey. Our analytic approach includes cross-sectional spatial models to estimate the reproduction of poverty for each of the reference years as well as a fixed effects panel data model, to analyze change in child poverty over time. In addition, we estimate a full space–time interaction model, which adjusts for spatial and temporal variation in these data. These models reinforce our understanding of the strong regional persistence of childhood poverty in the U.S. over time and suggest that the factors impacting childhood poverty remain much the same today as they have in past decades.

Abstract  In this paper we return to an issue often discussed in the literature regarding the relationship between highway expansion and population change. Typically it simply is assumed that this relationship is well established and understood. We argue, following a thorough review of the relevant literature, that the notion that highway expansion leads to increased population growth in the vicinity of the improved infrastructure finds only weak and often conflicting support. Using data on all major highway expansions in Wisconsin covering the period from the late‐1960s through the 1990s from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT), and census data at the minor civil division (MCD) level covering the period 1970 to 2000, we deploy the analytical tools of geographic information system (GIS) software, and theory from the expanding literature in spatial analysis and modeling, to take a fresh look at this relationship. Our analysis reveals that there is a modest relationship between highway expansion and population growth among MCDs within 10–20 miles of the expanded major highway. The causal structure, however, is complex. Our starting hypothesis argues that population growth precedes highway expansion as frequently as population growth results from highway expansion, but the data show otherwise. The dominant causal influence appears to flow from highway expansion to population growth.

Abstract By examining the 1979 income status of 1975–1980 inmigrants, outmigrants, and nonmigrants, we gauged the income effects of migration for a group of chronic low‐income counties in the nonmetropolitan South. The effects are demonstrated to be positive for the migrants themselves and negative for the low‐income counties. In both instances, however, the effects are unexpectedly small. By considering both in‐ and outmigrants, we show that these counties experienced a remarkable degree of income replacement and also present evidence that the results are not primarily due to the particular migration period under study. The findings give additional evidence of the substantial inefficiency at work in American migration patterns.

Little systematic work has been undertaken to explain highway impacts on population change. In this study, the authors review the literature in regional economics and demographics in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms by which investments in highway infrastructure influence population change. First, they categorize the indirect causal paths by which highways influence population change at the county and municipal levels. Then they propose a spatio-temporal approach to revisit highway effects on population change from the stage of highway development and areal characteristics specifically. Finally, it is concluded that at the county and municipal levels, the effect of highways on population change varies from preconstruction to postconstruction periods and across urban, suburban, and rural areas.