Sunbelt Growth and the Knowledge Economy: An Exploratory Approach

Focusing on the narrower concept of a knowledge-economy-based growth strategy, this paper explores whether a strong link between a college-educated population and a region’s economic performance was an important ingredient in the growth experience of the Sunbelt during the 1990s. The issue is addressed through analysis of two different datasets. First, the education and income characteristics of the people moving to the Sunbelt region are examined using migration data from the 2000 census. Then we look at the link between the knowledge-economy metric of the share of college educated adults and economic growth in the Sunbelt in the 1990s using data for 116 Sunbelt MSAs. The results of our analysis provide little evidence that a college educated workforce was a major factor promoting economic growth in Sunbelt cities during that period.