Spatiotemporal downscaling of global population and income scenarios for the United States

Abstract

Downscaled climate projections need to be linked to downscaled projections of population and economic growth to fully develop implications for land, natural resources, and ecosystems for future scenarios. We develop an empirical spatiotemporal approach for jointly projecting population and income at the county scale in the United States that is consistent with neoclassical economic growth theory and overlapping labor markets and that accounts for labor migration and spatial spillovers. Downscaled projections generated for the five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways used to support global scenario analysis generally show growth focused around relatively few centers especially in the southeast and western regions, with some areas in the Midwest and northeast experiencing population declines. Results are consistent with economic growth theory and with historical trends in population change and convergence of per capita personal income across US counties.