Educational attainment and border income performance

Texas border areas face a variety of economic challenges. In today's labor markets, income performance depends increasingly on productivity, which is primarily a function of educational attainment. To examine the extent to which education influences border region incomes, a cross-section econometric model is estimated using county-level information. Data are drawn from the 1990 census for all 254 counties in Texas. Empirical results indicate that per capita income is influenced by educational, demographic, and geographic factors. Regression output is similar, but not identical, to estimates obtained for other regions of the country. Model simulation results indicate that border counties lost nearly $3.6 billion in personal income in 1990 due to below-average high school graduation rates.