Population growth and regional economy: an empirical analysis of business formation and job

This study investigates the effects of the components of population change - net migration and natural increase - on business starts and job generation in the retail sector of regional economies between 1975 and 1980. Results suggest that population growth has a strong positive impact on the retail sector in metropolitan core, suburban, non-metropolitan adjacent and rural counties in the USA. In the main, net migration had a greater impact on business starts than natural increase, although this pattern did not hold in every county group. By contrast, natural increase had a greater impact on job generation among existing retail businesses; this pattern was found to be consistent in each of the four types of counties studied.