TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Tobio,Kristina
TI  - The Rise of the Sunbelt
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13071
PY  - 2007
Y2  - April 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13071
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13071.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Kristina Tobio
Kennedy School of Government
79 JFK St- T347
Cambridge, MA  02138
E-Mail: kristina_tobio@ksg.harvard.edu
AB  - In the last 50 years, population and incomes have increased steadily throughout much of the Sunbelt.  This paper assesses the relative contributions of rising productivity, rising demand for Southern amenities and increases in housing supply to the growth of warm areas, using data on income, housing price and population growth.  Before 1980, economic productivity increased significantly in warmer areas and drove the population growth in those places.  Since 1980, productivity growth has been more modest, but housing supply growth has been enormous.  We infer that new construction in warm regions represents a growth in supply, rather than demand, from the fact that prices are generally falling relative to the rest of the country.  The relatively slow pace of housing price growth in the Sunbelt, relative to the rest of the country and relative to income growth, also implies that there has been no increase in the willingness to pay for sun-related amenities.  As such, it seems that the growth of the Sunbelt has little to do with the sun.
ER  -