WSP05845

• File Number: 8507
• Description: Rio Grande Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Date: 7/1/1997
• Title: Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin part 2
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin

efficient and fair manner. In the remainder ofthis chapter we discuss some
of the factors that will influence the constraints and opportunities for
responding to this challenge.

2. Education Is Increasingly Important as a Determinant of Wages

Throughout the U.S., structural changes in the economy are affecting the
earnings of individual workers and the economic outlook for co=unities
and regions. Foremost among these is the increasing importance of
education as a determinant of earnings, relative to other historically
important factors, such as proximity to resource-based and heavy
manufacturing industries. In the past, many unskilled workers could count
on these industries for jobs offering middle-class earnings, but many of these
jobs have disappeared over the past two decades, at the same time as the
demand for high-skilled workers has outpaced supply throughout the
economy (Bound and Johnson 1995; Ilg 1996). Education is similarly
important in the study area. In this section we examine this relationship in
the context of the study area, reviewing data for El Paso, New Mexico as a
whole, and Albuquerque.

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El Paso's economy is among the fastest-growing in the nation. Historically,
it has had three major elements: the city's historic role as a trading center
for a large, surrounding area; the development of copper and natural gas
industries; and the U.s. Army's nearby Ft. Bliss. A recent assessment ofEl
Paso's economy by Brian McDonald, the director of the University of New
Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research concludes, however,
that for the past three decades, the major source of economic growth has
been the expansion of private sector activity, primarily in manufacturing,
services, and trade (McDonald 1995). Another source of economic growth is
the area's rapid population growth: El Paso and nearby counties in Texas
are expected to grow by almost 27 percent during the decade, more than
twice as fast as the national average (Sharp 1995).

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Although manufacturing often is regarded as a high-wage sector, this
generally is not the case in El Paso, where manufacturing is characterized by
maquiladora operations. Maquiladora operations typically involve twin
plants, primarily in a manufacturing industry, open on either side of the
U.S.-Mexico border. Historically, the actual manufacturing activities took
place on the Mexican side of the border, in El Paso's twin city, Ciudad
Juarez, and the warehousing, administrative, and other support services

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