The expansion of ethnic minorities evokes policy debate about their impact on the local economy, driving a need to measure their effects. We employ the confidential US Census data to investigate drivers of local economic performance with emphasis on the role of Latino-owned businesses (LOB) on convergence. The model also includes a number of controls. The model produces direct, indirect, and total impact estimates, and expected values for the non-LOB controls. The estimated total impact of LOB employment on county-level average annual growth rates is significant and positive, but a rurality interaction carries the opposite sign, such that the total impact in rural areas is negative.
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