ABSTRACT
Over the past 23 years from 1990 to 2012, the Memphis metropolitan area had experienced fairly slow economic growth in average income level of its people. In order to understand keys to economic growth in the Memphis metropolitan area, I look for statistically and economically significant growth factors by estimating a standard growth model in a panel of the 43 largest metropolitan areas of the United States from 1990 to 2012. Specifically, I control for factors that previous researches have argued were important: education, industry composition and the role of government. I find that all these factors play important roles in determining earnings in a metro area. Among these factors, my measure of the percentage of population with college degree and the percentage of the retail trade employment have positive effects on a metro area’s per capita income, while the percentage of the employment in transportation and utilities industry, the percentage of the employment in education and health service industry and the percentage of the employment in government sector have negative effects on a metro area’s per capita income.
Keywords
Economic Growth, Metropolitan Areas