John L. Pender is an economist at the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.

Bruce A. Weber is Professor of Applied Economics and Director of the Rural Studies Program at Oregon State University, USA.

Thomas G. Johnson is Professor of Applied Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri, USA.

J. Matthew Fannin is Associate Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at Louisiana State University, USA.

1. Rural Wealth Creation: Introduction and overview John L. Pender, Thomas G. Johnson, Bruce A. Weber, and J. Matthew Fannin Part I: Conceptual Foundations 2. Wealth Concepts John L. Pender and Shanna Ratner 3. Comprehensive Wealth Accounting: Bridging place-based and people-based measures of wealth Thomas G. Johnson, Neus Raines, and John L. Pender Part II: Measuring Rural Wealth 4. Measuring Rural Wealth: Valuing human and built capital at the community level Alexander W. Marré and John L. Pender 5. The Net Worth of Households: Is there a rural difference? Alexander W. Marré 6. The Role of Wealth Measurements in Improving Practice: Lessons from the field Shanna Ratner and Melissa Levy 7. Defining and Measuring Public Sector Wealth: How much control does the public have over public wealth in a fiscally stressed world? J. Matthew Fannin and Beth Walter Honadle 8. Measuring the Wealth of Regions: Geospatial approaches to empirical capital estimation Hodjat Ghadimi, Trevor M. Harris, and Timothy A. Warner 9. Absentee Forest and Farm Land Ownership in Alabama: Capturing benefits from natural capital controlled by non-residents Conner Bailey and Mahua Majumdar Part III: Strategies for Rural Wealth Creation 10. Strategies for Rural Wealth Creation: A progression of thinking through ideas and concepts Steven C. Deller 11. Rural Wealth Creation and Emerging Energy Industries: Lease and royalty payments to farm households and businesses Jeremy G. Weber, Jason P. Brown, and John L. Pender 12. Natural Capital and Rural Wealth Creation: A case study of federal forest policy and community vitality in the Pacific Northwest Yong Chen and Bruce A. Weber 13. Entrepreneurship and Rural Wealth Creation Sarah A. Low 1 4. Evaluating the Impact of Farmers' Markets Using a Rural Wealth Creation Approach Becca B. R. Jablonski 15. Attracting Retirees as a Rural Wealth Creation Strategy Richard J. Reeder and Faqir S. Bagi 16. Casino Development as a Rural Wealth Creation Strategy John L. Pender Part IV: Synthesis and Conclusions 17. Developing a Typology of Wealth Creation Approaches and Contexts: Hypotheses and an example for the case of attracting retirees John L. Pender and Robert Dinterman 18. Rural Wealth Creation: Conclusions and implications John L. Pender, Bruce A. Weber, Thomas G. Johnson, and J. Matthew Fannin

This book investigates the role of wealth in achieving sustainable rural economic development. The authors define wealth as all assets net of liabilities that can contribute to well-being, and they provide examples of many forms of capital - physical, financial, human, natural, social, and others. They propose a conceptual framework for rural wealth creation that considers how multiple forms of wealth provide opportunities for rural development, and how development strategies affect the dynamics of wealth. They also provide a new accounting framework for measuring wealth stocks and flows. These conceptual frameworks are employed in case study chapters on measuring rural wealth and on rural wealth creation strategies.
Rural Wealth Creation makes numerous contributions to research on sustainable rural development. Important distinctions are drawn to help guide wealth measurement, such as the difference between the wealth located within a region and the wealth owned by residents of a region, and privately owned versus publicly owned wealth. Case study chapters illustrate these distinctions and demonstrate how different forms of wealth can be measured. Several key hypotheses are proposed about the process of rural wealth creation, and these are investigated by case study chapters assessing common rural development strategies, such as promoting rural energy industries and amenity-based development. Based on these case studies, a typology of rural wealth creation strategies is proposed and an approach to mapping the potential of such strategies in different contexts is demonstrated.
This book will be relevant to students, researchers, and policy makers looking at rural community development, sustainable economic development, and wealth measurement.