THE EFFECT OF FEDERAL WILDERNESS ON COUNTY GROWTH IN THE INTERMOUNTAIN WESTERN UNITED-STATES

A consistent theme in the debate over federally-owned wilderness areas in the intermountain western United States is that local economies ma ybe adversely affected by such a designation. Yet empirical evidence o f this negative effect is rarely offered. This paper finds, for a samp le of 250 nonurban counties in the eight states of the intermountain w est, no evidence that the existence of federal wilderness is directly or indirectly associated with either population-density or total-emplo yment-density growth between 1980 and 1990. This empirical finding is based on a disequilibrium model of population and employment growth. F urthermore, much of the economic concern over wilderness designation c enters on its perceived effect on resource-based industries. Yet, this study finds no empirical evidence that county-level resource-based em ployment is adversely affected by the existence of federal wilderness.