Departments of Agricultural and Consumer Economics

KEY WORDS: water resources, rural development policy, statistical methods. ABSTRACT: Dam construction has been an important component of economic development initiatives in the United States. However, few comprehensive ex post empirical studies examine the effects of such projects on local employment and income. This paper employs quasi-experimental control group methods to examine the effects of large dam reservoirs on county income, earnings, population, and employment growth for dams opened in the U.S. during the period 1975-1984. This paper shows that large dam reservoirs have some statistically significant positive effects and tend to stimulate growth. There is considerable variation, however, with dams constructed for flood control purposes and dams located further away from markets and large cities having less of an effect. *Acknowledgement: This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was conducted partially while all three authors were at the Regional Research Institute of West Virginia University. The authors would like to thank their colleague, David Sorenson, now of Augustana College, for his major programming assistance while the methods were being developed