The Southern Economy at the Precipice of the Post-Global Age: Evaluating Pandemic-Era Disruptions to the Export Sector

Abstract

highlights:•Export activity from the southern United States has outpaced exports from the US at large, in addition to exceeding growth in overall southern economic output.•Southern export activities have been spatially uneven and shown signs of volatility, indicating heterogeneous evolutionary paths.•Many southern states continue to serve longtime export partners, markets, yet the export concentration in the top markets has largely diminished over the past two decades.The southern United States has seen explosive economic growth over the past several decades. One component of this growth has entailed rapid (and often widely varying) increases in goods-related exports, with overall growth numbers that have exceeded the US at large in addition to eclipsing overall southern economic output. However, has this growth in internationalization been shared across the region and moreover, do southern states serve similar export markets? Within the contexts of evolutionary economic geography and research on the geographies of exporting, this paper examines the trajectories of goods-related exports across the southern US, particularly in relation to recent shifts in the global economy including during the pandemic. The analyses reveal that export growth and performance are largely uneven in spatial terms, yet many states share leading export markets and also show signs of less dependence on dominant markets. On balance, exports appear to be tied to large, branch-plant production or related to extractive industries. The paper concludes with discussions on whether exports have been beneficial to the region and possible futures for exporting across the South in light of evolutionary changes in globalization.