Income Migration and Income Convergence across U.S. States, 1995–2010

In this paper we examine how internal migration redistributes earned income across U.S. states between 1995 and 2010. We examine interregional income flows by first describing the movement of earned income between U.S. states. Second, we examine the effect of income migration on spatial patterns of income inequality. The question we ask is, “does migration increase or decrease convergence income across U.S. States?” A primary contribution of this paper is that instead of using only 1 year of income migration data to explore these issues, we use yearly data from the first year the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data started including income (1995/1996) up to the most current data available (2009/2010). Results indicate that income convergence/divergence across states varies by whether or not there is general economic expansion or contraction. Nevertheless, some high‐amenity states continually attract high‐income households.     

Retail Trade on the U.S.‐Mexico Border During the NAFTA Implementation Era

ABSTRACT When NAFTA was implemented in 1994, there was a general expectation that it would hurt U.S. retailers along the U.S.‐Mexico border. This paper asks whether there was a significant change in the pattern of retail trade in border MSAs in the years surrounding NAFTA's implementation. Data from MSAs in the four border states are analyzed. After controlling for other potential influences on retail trade, there remained a statistically significant change in the pattern of retail trade between 1992 and 1997. The changes cannot be unquestionably attributed to NAFTA but do suggest that NAFTA had a negative influence on retail sales on the U.S. side of the border.     

Technology and the Convergence of U.S. Urban Migration Patterns: 1970–2000

ABSTRACT The theoretical premise of this study is twofold. First, that industrial and occupational restructuring within three industries in the U.S.—manufacturing, finance, and high technology—occurred because of technological developments and these, in turn, influenced the settlement patterns of working‐age individuals. Second, that quality‐of‐life factors are increasingly important for the migration decisions of workers as the importance of proximity to ports and raw materials declines. As expected, the results show that high concentrations of high‐technology and finance occupations generally have a positive pull for migrants, with younger migrants most attracted to technology jobs. High concentrations of manufacturing jobs have a negative effect. Most surprisingly, the explanatory power of the model declines substantially across the three decades. Both employment variables and proxies for quality‐of‐life variables lost explanatory power for modeling age‐specific in‐migration to metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). Overall, the results support the industrial restructuring hypothesis, but do not find support for the idea that quality‐of‐life factors have grown in importance.     

Innovation and Regional Growth in Mexico: 2000–2010

This paper looks at the factors driving regional growth in Mexico, paying special attention to the potentially growth‐enhancing role of innovation and innovation policy. The analysis combines innovation variables with indicators linked to the formation of adequate social conditions for innovation (the social filter), and spillovers for 31 Mexican states and the Mexico City capital district (the Distrito Federal) during the period 2000–2010. The results indicate that regional economic growth across Mexican states stems from direct investment in research and development (R&D) in areas with favorable social filters and which can benefit not only from knowledge spillovers, but also from being surrounded by rich neighbors with good social conditions. The results stress that, although Mexican innovation policy has been relatively well targeted in order to generate greater economic growth, its relatively modest size may have undermined the attainment of its main objectives.     

Internal Migration in Mexico: Consolidation of Urban–Urban Mobility, 2000–2015

Internal migration has been recognized as the major influence in terms of population redistribution across urban systems, but it is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Within the context of internal rural‐urban migration decline and the negative changes in migratory balances in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, the core of enquiry in this paper is the approach to growth and consolidation of an internal urban–urban migration system in the early twenty‐first century (2000–2015). This process has taken place through two main networks, among metropolitan areas not corresponding to the principal city and among intermediate cities. Internal migration is a complex process that involves both individual and spatial characteristics and which leads to spatially uneven development in the long term. Data from three censuses of the population of Mexico (2000, 2010, and 2015) show a transition to a more urban–urban migration pattern, with skilled migrants tending to have metropolitan and urban destinations, whereas less‐skilled migrants prefer rural and small urban destinations.     

The Great Recession and the Migration Redistribution of Blacks and Whites in the U.S. South

For much of the last century, the South was a net loser of blacks and whites to other regions. The end of this “Great Migration” occurred around 1970. Since then, the South is the only U.S. region to gain both blacks and whites through migration in every decade. As recessions often perturb migration systems by restraining rates of movement and altering patterns, this paper explores how the Great Recession of 2007–2009 and its aftermath affected the established migration gains of native‐born blacks and whites within the South. We use data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses and pooled data from American Community Survey to evaluate these changes. While the South continued to add both blacks and whites from migration during the recessionary years, key states bucked this trend. Georgia, for example, experienced a net migration gain of blacks but a net loss of whites. Florida added population in all time periods studied but lost large numbers of educated blacks and whites between 2008–2010. Texas, in contrast, added both blacks and whites from migration no matter their age or education throughout the recent recession. This economic downturn, then, has disturbed long‐term migration patterns in the South. A more nuanced set of interstate movements has emerged, differentiated by age and education within race groups, which we suspect will last for some time.     

The Influence of Booms and Busts in the U.S. Economy on the Interstate Migration System

Migration flows around the U.S. have shown a great deal of temporal and geographical differentiation over the past few decades. However, the recent downturn in the U.S. economy provides a renewed motivation to explore the relationship between the macro‐economy and interstate migration. To address this issue, in this paper patterns of interstate migration are analyzed using IRS data and several migration efficiency measures for 18 2‐year time periods, 1988–2006. Included in the analysis is an examination of the relationship between system migration and economic change, structural changes in the migration system over time (national and state level), and changes in the geography of state‐level migration efficiency rates. As might be expected, the two full business cycles that occurred over this time period saw significant short‐term changes in migration flows, although the economic downturn of 2001‐02 may indicate more fundamental changes in the migration system.     

“Moderate” Environmental Amenities and Economic Change: The Nonmetropolitan Northern Forest of the Northeast U.S., 1970‐2000

ABSTRACT Population, employment, and income changes in a region comprised of eighteen nonmetropolitan counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York are described using Bureau of Economic Analysis data covering 1970 to 2000. Changes at the county level are examined as net differences using pooled cross‐section time series analysis. The specific focus of the empirical analysis is the effect that environmental amenities have in population and economic change. Empirical results indicate that a county's relative endowment of environmental amenities has positive economic change effects, but only when the county is relatively accessible as well. Further, the environmental amenity effects vary in their temporal consistency, even when accessibility is taken into account. In general, however, the reported results support the proposition that even relatively moderate environmental amenities can hold positive effects for economic change.     

Air Passenger Transportation and Growth in the U.S. Urban System, 1950–1987

The relationship between transportation and urbanization at the national scale is revisited by focusing upon the role that air passenger transportation has played in the post-war evolution of the U.S. urban system. Theory suggests that major transportation innovations have exhibited profound and prolonged interdependencies with patterns of growth in national or regional urban systems. As the most recent major intercity transportation innovation, it should be expected that utilization of air transportation should bear some relationship to patterns of growth in urban places. This paper documents this relationship by using FAA and U.S. Census data to correlate volumes of air passenger flows per capita with changes in population and employment for the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas. The expectation that higher volumes of air passenger flow per capita exhibit a positive correlation with both previous and subsequent growth is confirmed by the analysis. More detailed examination of both high and low air passenger index cities suggests functional and regional consistencies with the central hypothesis. The implications of these results for air transportation and airport planning include at least some justification for increased attention to provision of air service and adequate airport infrastructure as well as reiteration of the importance of air transportation in economic development.     

Short‐Run Dynamics of Income Disparities and Regional Cycle Synchronization in the U.S.

Since the 1990s, the issue of regional income convergence and its long‐term tendencies has been thoroughly and heatedly discussed. Much less attention, however, has been devoted to the short‐run dynamics of regional convergence. In particular, three important aspects have not yet been adequately addressed. First, it is indeed essential to understand whether regional disparities manifest a tendency to move systematically along the national cycle. Then, if this happens to be the case, it becomes crucial to know whether 1) these movements are pro‐ or counter‐cyclical,2) the cyclical evolution of the disparities is a consequence of differences in the timing with which the business cycle is felt in regions or it is motivated by the amplitude differences across local cyclical swings. In this paper, we shed light on these issues using data on personal income for the 48 coterminous U.S. states between 1969 and 2008. Our results indicate that income disparities do not move randomly in the short run but follow a distinct cyclical pattern, moving either pro‐ or counter‐cyclically depending on the period of analysis. These patterns are probably explained by the changes in the direction of capital and labor flows that favor developed or poorer states in different periods. As for the underlying mechanism, it appears that the short‐run evolution of the disparities in recent years is largely a consequence of differences in the timing with which the business cycle is felt across states rather than the outcome of amplitude differences across local cyclical swings.     

The Shifting Destinations of Metropolitan Migrants in the U.S., 2005–2011

Recent estimates that central cities are growing faster than their suburbs in the U.S. have captured the attention of both academics and the popular media. Many commentators have used these numbers to claim that internal migration trends in the U.S. have reached a turning point, in which migrants increasingly prefer urban residences to suburban locales. However, these assertions often rely on problematic definitions of city and suburb, and pay too little attention to demographic variations among migrants. This paper examines whether recent internal migrants in the U.S. are choosing closer‐in destinations, drawing from microdata samples from the American Community Survey since 2005. During this period, there is an overall trend of migrants to the largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. choosing to migrate closer to the metropolitan core. However, this trend varies significantly among major demographic groups; whereas younger, single, educated, and white‐collar migrants show evidence of a return to the core, migrants who are blue‐collar, less‐educated, older, and with families remain more suburban. In turn, this analysis suggests that overall trends of “back to the city” migration are producing considerable divergence in the metropolitan destinations of different demographic groups.     

Growth of Creative Occupations in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: A Shift‐Share Analysis

ABSTRACT This article uses a shift‐share model to investigate the growth of creative occupations in U.S. metropolitan areas during the 1990s. Empirical findings indicate that the performance of the creative economy varied widely across the U.S., and that the highest competitive growth rates of the creative workforce occurred in the Rocky Mountain, Southeast, and Southwest regions. Further analysis focused on whether high competitive workforce growth between 1990 and 2000 translated into high competitive employment growth from 1999 to 2003. The results show that many of the areas with the highest competitive growth rates of creative economy employment from 1999 to 2003 were some of the weakest regions in terms of creative workforce growth during the 1990s. This raises questions about the extent to which jobs follow people in the creative economy, and suggests that an initial strong presence in the creative economy is not a prerequisite for future growth.     

Moonlighting in a High Growth Economy: Evidence from U.S. State‐Level Data

Despite the prevalence of multiple jobholding, there is relatively little research into its causes. Existing research has tested the predictions of standard labor models with micro data. Yet, there has been virtually no research into the relationship between moonlighting and structural differences in regional labor markets such as wages and employment growth. In this manner, this study examines the large differences in multiple jobholding rates across U.S. states. The findings indicate that multiple jobholding acts as a short‐term shock absorber to cyclical changes. However, in the long‐term, these effects dissipate, indicating that moonlighting plays a similar role as do changes in unemployment and labor‐force participation to regional labor market shocks. Conversely, multiple jobholding rates are inversely related to average weekly earnings. Thus, job growth accompanied by real wage (and productivity) growth may result in a decline in multiple jobholding, further exacerbating potential labor shortages. Other key factors found to influence multiple jobholding include occupational structure and education.     

Race,Place, and the Persisting Income Divide in the U.S. Southeast, 2000–2014

Despite economic growth since the recession, the gap between the richest and the poorest segments of the population remains one of the most pressing concerns of contemporary America. This paper uses IR‐95/20, IR‐80/20, and IR‐65/35 ratios to measure the income divides between the richest and the poorest segments in the mid‐to‐large‐sized metropolises of the U.S. Southeast, their variation across ethnicities, and their association with metropolitan level attributes such as diversity, segregation, socio‐economic, and other built‐environment, and labor characteristics. The income divide ratios serve as the dependent variables whereas principal components along with state‐dummy variables serve as the explanatory variables in regressions analyses. The metropolises that are large, diverse, and better educated are the most income‐divided whereas those with lower educated people are less divided. Metropolises with larger shares of their labor engaged in primary sectors of economy have higher income divides; this observation also holds true for African Americans and Hispanics. Metropolises that gained in intermixing during 2000–2014 are associated with a lower income divide and vice versa.     

The U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and Commodity Transportation Services among U.S. States

The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) implemented beginning in 1989 by the United States aid Canada will have significant impacts on bilateral trading patterns. In addition to its long-term, investment-related repercussions, the FTA will affect the volume, commodity composition, and spatial distribution of trade and, consequently, the transportation services required to move commodities between the two nations. This paper examines the changing spatial structure of U.S.-Canadian trade under the FTA. It employs commodity-specific analyses of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, as well as price and income elasticities of demand, to estimate sectoral and special changes among U.S. states in total, land, water, and airborne commodity flows since 1988 attributable to the FTA. The analysis details the assumptions and methodology used, elaborates upon the likely consequences for me nation's ten largest customs districts, particularly New York, and concludes with some comments on other forces that may alter the expected results.