In support of the mission of the University of Wyoming, the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and the Cooperative Extension Service conduct research in the area of Community Economic Development and analysis. These pages introduce the subject and provide a brief overview of our work as well as being a starting point for further discovery on the topic.

What is Economic Development?

The concept of economic development is often misunderstood. Many times the term is confused with economic growth to define any type of money generating activity in the community. To further cloud the issue, there is no one prescription for economic development that will full-fill the needs of all communities. Successful economic development is a process that fills different needs for different communities at different times. Its success is often case specific, depending on the development goals, implementation and funding resources available. Communities need to thoroughly understand the process before jumping onto the economic development bandwagon. The results of misunderstanding the process can be misunderstanding by the community and political gridlock in the bureaucracy.

Economic development can be defined as "a sustained community effort to improve both the local economy and the quality of life by building the area’s capacity to adapt to economic change" (Loveridge and Morse). This definition suggests a distinction between economic growth and economic development. Economic growth represents an increase in jobs and income in the community. It refers to the expansion of total economic activity in the community. While economic development can involve job and income growth, it also involves sustainable increases in the productivity of individuals, businesses and resources to increase the overall well being of residents and maintaining or even enhancing the quality of life. Economic development refers to the enhancement of economic activity in the community. Economic growth is generally a short run concept while economic development is a long term commitment. To illustrate this point, say there are an increasing number of jobs in a local economy. This may represent economic growth, but if the new jobs do not pay wages that residents can afford to live on, the growth may not represent economic development . However, this short run economic growth could also be a short run objective of a long-term plan of economic development.