Economic Indicators

The Chamber's monthly Economic Indicators report on the Central Texas region chronicles economic activity on a monthly or quarterly basis. For this overview including links to downloadable data files please visit the Economic Indicators page within the Business section.

Central Texas Economy in Perspective

By: Beverly Kerr, Vice President, Research

February 21, 2012 edition

Austin ranks as the 11th best performing U.S. metro according to the Brookings Institution's latest assessment of the performance of metropolitan economies. The newest installment of "MetroMonitor" is the 2011 Global MetroMonitor, which ranks the 200 largest metropolitan economies across the globe based on growth patterns during the 2010 to 2011 period. Austin’s rank globally for 2010-2011 performance is 74th. The 57 largest U.S. metros are included in the global ranking. The graphs below represent the best U.S. performers based on 2010-2011 growth in per capita GDP and growth in employment.


Ninety percent of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies among the 200 largest worldwide were located outside North America and Western Europe. Only two U.S. metros, Dallas and Houston, rank in the top quintile of global metropolitan areas based on 2010-2011 performance. Eleven U.S. metros, including Austin, fall into the second-strongest performing quintile. Austin’s change in economic index rank between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 puts it in the top quintile among the 200 ranked global metros.

The Global MetroMonitor site features an interesting interactive map application illustrating relative performance of the 200 global metros over 2010-2011, 2009-2010, the year of minimum annual growth in the 2007-2010 recession period, and the long-run, prerecession period from 1993 to 2007. Austin was the 4th fastest growing U.S. metro economy before the recession (or 23rd globally), ranked 16th during the recession (or 116th globally), ranked 9th for 2009-2010 (or 99th globally).

The graphs below represent best U.S. performers based on the 1993-2007 pre-recession period. The very fastest growing metros of the pre-recession period had the worst of the recession and remain mired at the bottom of the ranks in the two recovery periods. San Jose is the lone metro in the pre-recession top 10 to also stand in the top 10 in 2010-2011.


The Brookings report also identifies metro areas that have fully recovered from the Great Recession, those still in recovery mode, and those that continued to lose ground last year. Among U.S. metros, three remain in full recession (San Francisco, Kansas City, and Sacramento), 14 in partial recession, and the remainder, including Austin, are classified as in partial recovery from a major recession.

The inaugural Global MetroMonitor was released by Brookings in November of 2010. In that report, which employed somewhat different parameters and methodology, Austin ranked as the No. 1 metro in the U.S. and No. 26 in the world in terms of jobs and income growth during the economic recovery. Brookings ranked metro performance before, during, and after the recession. In the pre-recession ranking, Austin is 25th globally and 3rd nationally, in the recession period, Austin is 40th globally and 3rd nationally, and in the recovery ranking, Austin is 26th globally and 1st nationally.