Sectoral Growth Across U.S. States: Factor Content, Linkages, and Trade

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Employing a 'factor-content' model that relates sectoral growth to regional factor endowments, we find that 1) U.S. state factor endowments are reasonably strong correlates of cross-state sectoral growth in value-added, with patterns that accord well with intuition; 2) that inter-sectoral differences in productivity change are marked -- estimates range from negative to annual rates over 10 percent; 3) little evidence of unusual growth linkages either from sector to sector or state to state, such as might be expected from recent discussions of externalities,... 4) ...nor of correlation between unusually strong sectoral growth and unusual levels of export dependence, another putative channel of externalities. Our principle data set is a 1987-89 panel of: sector-by-sector, state-by-state value added and international exports, as well as state endowments of patents, structural capital, and as many as six types of labor. 'Unusual' growth and exports are defined as the residual growth and international exports left unexplained by endowments.

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