IMPLAN Blog

IMPLAN’s HQ is nestled in the bucolic margins of Lake Norman and a mere stone’s throw from Charlotte’s city center—751 feet above sea level. We’ve all been hitting the refresh buttons on our screens to catch every change to the weather models as hurricane Florence slowly creeps toward our coast from seas which seem to have made it a banner week for tropical storms.

Economic impact analysis is, at the end of the day, only a fraction of the work necessary for understanding and communicating the significance of an economic event (whether business- or policy-related) to the people who might be most affected by those economic changes. The remaining work related to getting the word out happens in press conferences, on phone calls, and online. Here’s our best advice on how to recruit the media’s help in getting all that work done—excerpted from one of our recent white papers, Creating a Compelling Economic Impact Report.

Economists use the name “IMPLAN” to refer to both the company’s software and data. The impact analysis data takes the software and company as its namesake (distinct from IMPLAN’s CEW, Occupational Employment and Compensation Matrices, and other data products) mainly because, though fastidiously true to its sources, the data in form and function is ultimately unique to the economic impact modeling world.

IMPLAN’s economists have completed our newest Census of Employment and Wages (CEW) data set which is now available for purchase. A lot of work goes into delivering the best, most detailed CEW data out there. And since we have CEW data for all counties for all years back to 2001, it makes for fantastic statistical and trend analysis for anyone wanting to look deeper into the U.S. wage and salary business sphere.

Taxes and tariffs have resurfaced in the last few months and are at the forefront of the nation’s attention. Rumors of trade wars and threats of economic sanctions fly around the globe faster than Garfield can devour a lasagna. Historically, governments have used taxes and tariffs to stimulate or throttle markets to achieve a desired economic state of balance.

Newsprint, unlike your average algebra quiz, leaves little room for showing your work. But that doesn’t mean that you have to give partial credit to every large sum that’s inked across page A1. Fortunately, there are a few easy tricks you can rely on to suss whether those impressive economic numbers are fact or fake news.

There are nearly as many different types of jobs as there are menu items on Starbucks' ever-changing menu. Naturally, counting them all up into one unified number in the results of an impact analysis grossly under-represents the diversity and dynamism of any given region’s workforce. But it’s possible to look at the unique job taxonomy of a region while still appreciating the big picture. Here are a few key job-related details to consider when interpreting employment impacts:

There’s a saying in the office here at IMPLAN that goes something like “our clients are often way more creative than we are at finding ways to use the software.” That’s never been more true of the Rand corporation in their collaboration with the Louisiana State University in their joint 2-year research project “Economic Evaluation of Coastal Land Loss in Louisiana” which was commissioned by Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority in December of 2015.

There’s never an easy path to affecting policy change whether we’re talking on the national, state, or local level. But among the tools available to give clarity to the conversation, economic contribution and economic impact analyses rank among the most widely used.