Identifying Constraints to Rural Economic Development: A Development Guidance Function Approach

We propose a method that incorporates specific business needs and community goals to identify community assets that most constrain local economic development. Access to a managerial workforce was the most common highly ranked constraint, but the set of most constraining assets varies across communities. Thus, a one-size-fits-all development policy is not appropriate. We also find that constraint rankings are highly correlated among communities that share tourism potential, that share energy resources, or that rely upon production agriculture. Development practitioners may craft a suite of development policies, each tailored to communities of a given typology.