Steven Deller

About

Steven Deller is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has been a faculty member since 1993. Prior to this, he served on the faculty of the University of Maine for four years. His work focuses broadly on community economic development, with particular emphasis on smaller communities and rural areas. He is also a Community Economic Development Specialist within the UW-Madison Division of Extension and has served as the interim director of the Center for Community and Economic Development. Professor Deller's research explores various aspects of community economic impacts, including mining, women-owned businesses, manufacturing location decisions, local foods as a development strategy, and the influence of taxes and public services on economic growth. His scholarly contributions include co-authoring the textbook Community Economics: Linking Theory and Practices, editing five books on community, rural, and regional economic development, and authoring or co-authoring numerous journal articles and book chapters. He has received several honors, including the North American Regional Science Council’s Walter Isard Award for Distinguished Scholarly Achievement and fellowships in multiple regional science associations. Deller has also served as co-editor of the Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy and is a member of the editorial boards of seven academic journals. His…

Research topics

• Economics
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Industrial organization
• Psychology
• Economic geography
• Economic growth
• Business

Selected publications

• Rural broadband speeds and business startup rates

  American Journal of Agricultural Economics · 2021 · 86 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Using 2014 U.S. nonmetropolitan county‐level data, we explore the relationship between broadband speeds and business startup rates. Rural development policy discussions have presumed that access to broadband has become a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for economic growth and development. The relationship between broadband access on business startups, which are vital to local economic vibrancy, may be key to understanding the link between broadband and growth. In this stud…

  PublisherDOI

• Tourism and economic resilience

  Tourism Economics · 2021 · 70 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has exposed the sensitivity of tourism- and hospitality-dependent regional economies to external shocks. While the negative impacts of external shocks on these economies have been widely studied, the resiliency of these tourism- and hospitality-dependent regions to recover from such shocks is less well understood. In this study, we model how dependency on tourism and hospitality activity influences regional economic resiliency. Using US county-level…

  DOI

• Social capital and community development: Where do we go from here?

  Community Development · 2021 · 41 citations

  Social capital has become a cornerstone to community development. Unfortunately, its scope of research, particularly on policy, creates more smoke than light. This essay builds on an interdisciplinary foundation for a more inclusive approach to social capital research. Though broad evidence supports Putnam’s claims on social capital, our understanding is incomplete, partly due to scholars’ focus on individual disciplinary perspectives. We summarize social capital and its use as a development too…

  DOI

• Women farmers and community well‐being under modeling uncertainty

  Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy · 2024-01-16 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract We examine the association between woman farmers and community well‐being using U.S. county‐level data. We address modeling uncertainty around three measures of community well‐being by using a spatial Bayesian model averaging approach and find that a higher share of farms operated or owned by women in a county is associated with higher rates of new business formation, longer life expectancies, and lower poverty rates. The results are consistent with a growing literature that finds women…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Is there a link between access to broadband and health outcomes?

  American Journal of Economics and Sociology · 2024-12-07 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract There is significant evidence of the positive effects of broadband expansion on various economic outcomes, including property values and business development, with a growing literature aimed at understanding the effect on health outcomes. We contribute to this later literature exploring the effect of broadband access on underexplored health using U.S. county data. After accounting for spatial dependency within the data we find that broadband availability positively affects health outcom…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Craig S. Maher

  University of Nebraska at Omaha

  62 shared

• Tessa Conroy

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  47 shared

• Judith I. Stallmann

  University of Missouri

  38 shared

• Martin Shields

  24 shared

• John M. Halstead

  University of New Hampshire

  23 shared

• David W. Marcouiller

  21 shared

• Sungho Park

  University of Alabama

  20 shared

• Bruce D. McDonald

  20 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Agricultural Economics

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1994

• M.S., Agricultural Economics

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1989

• B.S., Agricultural Economics

  University of Wisconsin-Madison

  1986

Awards & honors

• North American Regional Science Council’s Walter Isard Award…
• Inaugural Rural Renewal Research Prize awarded by the Rural…
• Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association
• Fellow of the Southern Regional Science Association
• Fellow of the Mid-Continent Regional Science Association

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