Research at the Economic Development Program aligns with the objectives of the Bureau of Business Research to provide essential research and information on Texas industries that contribute to the competitiveness of the state. Expectations of which new sectors will contribute most to the economic development of the state have changed and will continue to change through the years. Our research evolves accordingly.

Today, Austin has gained an important place as one of the world's premier high-technology cities. High technology has transformed the economy of Austin, making it more dependent on international markets and connections to facilitate the exchange of knowledge that is key to the economic development of the city. However, patterns of high-technology growth appear to be consistent with greater income inequalities. We are conducting a study on income inequalities in high-tech regions. Another important current phenomenon for the growth of the Texas economy is the increasing economic integration with Latin America spurred by the signature of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. A part of this phenomenon that has received little scholarly attention is women in business throughout the Americas. We are conducting a study that will focus on women in business in several key countries in the Americas.

The extraordinary growth of high technology dominated the competitiveness of the state in the 1990s. Our study (funded by the Air Force Office of Science Research through the IC²) on the factors that determine the location of high-technology firms in the five largest metropolitan areas in Texas analyzes how characteristics of the cities and relationships with suppliers and customers affect the location decisions of high-tech firms. Several articles on the emergence of Guadalajara, Mexico, as the Silicon Valley of the South prompted us to compare locational decisions of high-tech firms in industrialized countries and developing countries. This study was funded by the Center for Inter-American Policy Studies at the Institute of Latin American Studies.

In the 1980s, two new sectors emerged as key determinants of the states' competitiveness: tourism and the maquiladora industry. We conducted studies on the economic impact of tourism on Texas counties. For the first time, local information sources were used to estimate the travel sector's economic impact on the 254 counties in Texas. In addition, we conducted the first study of Japanese maquiladoras along the U.S-Mexico border. Indeed, all subsequent articles on Japanese maquiladoras in academic journals make reference to this benchmark study. We participated in the governor's committee to explore opportunities that the extraordinary growth of the offshore assembly industry along the U.S.-Mexico border could bring to the Texas economy.