Stocks of Wealth and the Value-Added Food and Agriculture Sector

Despite substantial effort to conceptualize wealth as supporting positive community economic development, little research tests the relationship between development outcomes and community wealth. This research assesses the relationship between the value-added food and agriculture business (VAFAB) sector and stocks of community wealth by leveraging a new dataset of stocks of community wealth and National Establishment Time Series data. We find significant relationships between the growth of VAFAB establishments and employment and stocks of community wealth. These results have implications for economic developers and policy makers in prioritizing investments should they want to grow the local VAFAB sector.