As always, Adam Tooze's latest, this time on coal and the West Virginia economy, is interesting and thought-provoking. But also, unusually, a bit credulous 1/ adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-46…
Tooze's numbers rely a lot on a study I cited for direct coal employment; but a lot of the rest of that study is, well, dubious 2/ wvcoal.com/news-2/latest-…
First of all, the study counts coal-fired electricity generation as part of the coal industry. But think about it: if we phased out coal, WV would still be generating power, just from other energy sources. Including this sector indicates an attempt to inflate the numbers 3/
The study also claims that indirect employment from contractors etc is bigger than employment in mining itself. I'm skeptical; BEA data on 2019 WV GDP don't show a lot of value-added outside the industry proper 4/ 
To be fair, some of that value-added may represent activity outside direct mining employment. But given the obvious attempt to blow up the numbers via power generation, caution is advised 5/
In any case, the larger point is that coal is a shrinking and doomed sector. Right now, WV's economy is largely supported by federal transfers, with de facto aid of about 17% of the state's GDP 6/ rockinst.org/issue-areas/fi…
That's not a condemnation: WV has to a large extent been stranded by changes in economic geography. But the state's true interest lies in strengthening the safety net now and searching for a better future — not trying to hold on to an unrecoverable past 7/
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