Slip Sliding Away: The Weak Relative Growth of the Missouri Economy

Economy | June 26, 2012

By Joseph Haslag and Michael Podgursky | Read Time 1 min

The purpose of this essay is to examine the relative economic performance of Missouri with two comparisons. Our first benchmark is the overall U.S. economy, where we find that output and job growth in our state has consistently lagged behind that of the nation as a whole. For example, if Missouri economic performance had simply paced that of the nation since 1997, state output would be $285 billion higher than it is today. We draw out the consequences of this stagnation in terms of lost tax revenues, jobs, and charitable contributions. A second benchmark is our neighbors: Missouri’s economic performance was dead last or second to last when compared to our neighboring states. In short, Missouri’s relative performance over the last decade and a half has been dreadful.

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About the Author

Joseph Haslag

Joseph Haslag is a professor and the Kenneth Lay Chair in economics at the University of Missouri Columbia. Until the end of 2018, Professor Haslag was the Institute's chief economist. An expert in monetary policy, Haslag has done research at the Federal Reserve Banks of Saint Louis, Dallas, and Atlanta. He serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas Citys Economic Roundtable and the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis Business Economic Regional Group. He has taught at Southern Methodist University, Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and Michigan State University. Haslag has published his research in the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and the International Economic Review. His research has been cited in more than 100 academic papers. In his role as director of EPARC, Haslag is a standing member of the Consensus Revenue Forecasting Group that forecasts state revenues for state legislators and the governor.

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About the Author

Michael Podgursky

Michael Podgursky is Chancellor's Professor of economics at the University of Missouri Columbia, where he served as department chair from 1995 to 2005, and research fellow and former director at the Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research at St. Louis University. He is a former fellow of the George W. Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University. He has published numerous articles and reports on education policy and teacher quality. He serves on advisory boards for various education organizations and on editorial boards of several policy research journals. From 1980 to 1995, he was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He earned his bachelors degree in economics from the University of Missouri Columbia and a PhD in economics from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

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