GROWTH AND CONVERGENCE IN THE SPACE ECONOMY : EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED STATES \

This paper investigates geographic relationships in a land use based regional adjustment model containing equations for population density, employment density, and wages in the continental United States during the 1980s and 1990s. The results of the analysis suggest that (1) accounting for spatial interdependencies appreciably enhances the estimates; (2) with this correction, the viability of the three-equation framework used here seems strong; and (3) even as the nation's post-industrial economy continues along its path of decentralization, equilibrating forces work to maintain an uneven pattern of development characteristic of the well-known, hierarchical system of regional economies described by traditional forms of location and central place theory.