Geographical Scale, Industrial Diversity and Regional Economic Stability

The empirical relationship between economic diversity and economic stability varies when it is measured at different geographical scales. This paper evaluates the role of geographical scales in assessing this diversity-stability relationship among counties, states, Economic Areas (EAs), metropolitan counties and metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the contiguous U.S. When choosing geographical units to analyze regional economic structure, it is necessary that the geographical units be large enough in population and employment to quantify effectively the regional economic structure. In addition, this paper proposes that geographical units also should be functionally aggregated regions as they better represent spatial interactions than formal regions do, and they consider the possible temporal variations in the boundaries of regional economic structures. ∗Graduate Research Assistant, Regional Research Institute and Department of Geology and Geography, West Virginia University. E–mail: [email protected]