This textbook offers an introduction to empirical regional economics, including a comprehensive and systematic overview of the fundamentals, history, development, and applications of economic base models. It not only provides a sound basis for regional economics and regional economic analysis, but it also includes numerous applications of the underlying theory. The book has an empirical orientation, highlighting the value of observation and testing in order to explain regional economic behavior. Theory plays an important role in this study, but it is only a starting point.

The book is divided into three parts: the first discusses the economic base theory of regional growth and the empirical evidence supporting it, while the second part covers the specification and application of four increasingly complex regional economic models: the economic base model, the input-output model, the interindustry econometric model, and the structural time-series model. Lastly, the third part presents forty-eight regional economic case studies organized under seven headings, including economic cycles, economic policy, and regional forecasting.

Given its scope, the book appeals to upper-undergraduate and graduate students majoring in economics, economic geography, and business, as well as to anyone in the private or public sector interested in gaining a better understanding of practical methods of regional economic forecasting and analysis.

Regional economic theory Regional economic growth Regional and spatial science Regional economic forecasting Input-output analysis Urban economics Structural time-series model

About the authors

For forty years, Dick Conway was principal of Dick Conway & Associates, a Seattle research and consulting firm specializing in regional economic forecasting and analysis. Between 1993 and 2017, he was also co-publisher of The Puget Sound Economic Forecaster, a quarterly forecast and commentary on the regional economy. While earning a living as a private economist and spending thirty-three years on the Washington Governors’ Council of Economic Advisors, the author has managed to keep one foot in academia. He has also taught courses in Macroeconomics and Regional Analysis at the University of Washington (USA), published nineteen articles in regional economic journals and books, and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Regional Science and International Regional Science Review.