Chapter 8.1, Problem 23E

Population Movement The Southwestern states were popular destinations in 2015. Suppose that Fig. 6 shows the percentages of people who moved in and out of the Southwest during 2015. At the beginning of 2015, about 12% of the U.S. population lived in the Southwest.

Figure 6

a. Set up the stochastic matrix that displays the transitions.

b. Assuming that these transition rates persisted for several years, use the matrix from part (a) to estimate the percent of the U.S. population living in the Southwestern states at the beginning of 2016 and 2017.