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Southwest Economy Archive

For Southwest Economy issues 1988–2022, see Historical archive

  • Steve Estes, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agent for Taylor County, offers his perspective on how ranchers, farmers and city dwellers can collectively work to ensure that the area makes the best decisions regarding precious water resources
  • Ethan Dixon, Robert Leigh and Pia Orrenius

    Funding for water infrastructure improvements has emerged as a priority for the Legislature during its 2025 legislative session. Absent changes to policy, Texans could face significant water shortages during droughts and constraints on future growth and economic development.
  • Garrett Golding, Diego Morales-Burnett and Kunal Patel

    New Mexico has become a U.S. leader in energy production over the past five years, drawing on Permian Basin reserves in the southeastern corner of the state. Oil and gas proceeds fund an increasing share of state government, most notably involving education programs.
  • Ray Perryman, principal of Waco-based The Perryman Group, has been an observer of the Texas economy for more than four decades. He offers his views of what has propelled Texas since the 1980s oil bust and the state’s future prospects, and he recounts how he grew his economics firm.
  • Enrique Dussel Peters, a professor at the Graduate School of Economics at the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México and coordinator of the university’s Center for Chinese–Mexican Studies, discusses trade flows between the U.S., Mexico and China and their prospects.
  • Jesse Thompson and Prithvi Kalkunte

    Texas is undergoing a boom in technology and energy-related construction that follows a pandemic-era warehouse and logistics building surge.
  • Seth Dunbar and Kelly Klemme

    Eleventh District community banks will likely continue to outperform their nationwide peers in terms of profitability, given their larger share of noninterest-bearing deposits.
  • Prithvi Kalkunte, Jesse Thompson and Garrett Golding

    Amid growing concerns about reliability of electricity services across power-hungry Texas, deployment of back-up power sources—microgrids and alternative generation—is increasing. These assets, serving customers ranging from college campuses to oilfield operations, help keep the lights on when disaster strikes.
  • Robert Leigh, Laila Assanie and Isabel Brizuela

    While New Mexico continues to navigate economic and demographic challenges, increased revenues from oil and gas production provide opportunities to invest in education, infrastructure and other improvements to boost long-term growth.
  • William Serrata, president of the El Paso County Community College District, discusses the unique, postpandemic challenges that community colleges face.

Southwest Economy has been published since 1988 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

Articles may be reprinted on the condition that the source is credited to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.