Metro Metrics October 2025

Metro Metrics is a monthly data snapshot that explores key economic indicators reflecting the health of the Madison metro economy.

Madison’s Export Markets

In this month’s Metro Metrics, we examine Greater Madison’s export activity to better understand the region’s economic connectivity to global markets.

In 2023, the top five categories of goods that the Madison Metro exported were chemicals, computer and electronic products, machinery, electrical equipment, and processed foods (Fig. 1). Processed foods was a recent addition to the top five, displacing miscellaneous manufacturing. Chemicals are the largest export category by total dollar amount, making up roughly 23% of Greater Madison’s total exports, followed by computer and electronic products at 21%. These two categories account for nearly half of the Metro’s total foreign exports of $2.9 billion in 2023. Total exports have been increasing over time. Exports as a proportion of the Metro’s GDP have remained roughly constant, fluctuating between 4% and 6% since 2005.  

The value of these exports lies not just in the dollars they bring to the region, but also in their employment effects. Fig. 2, which graphs total chemical exports from the Madison Metro plotted against regional employment in the chemical manufacturing industry, shows a strong correlation (R^2=0.88) between the two. The least-squares regression indicates that, on average, every $250,000 in chemical exports from the Madison Metro supports one additional job in the chemical manufacturing sector. The chemical manufacturing NAICS code includes many different subsectors, including pharmaceuticals and medicine, which is part of Greater Madison’s renowned Biohealth ecosystem.  

Based on trade data published by the ITA (Fig. 3), the largest group of countries Greater Madison exports to is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which includes most nations bordering the Pacific. In 2023, this group of 20 nations was the destination for more than half of Greater Madison’s exports and has accounted for between 52% and 62% of the Metro’s exports since 2005. Two of the nations in APEC, Canada and Mexico, are also part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). In 2023, the USMCA countries received roughly one-quarter of Greater Madison’s exports, a proportion which has ranged between 22% and 38% since 2005.