IMPLAN Blog

It’s important to keep an eye on economic diversity, especially in times of economic uncertainty and when supply and demand are shifting. The Shannon-Weaver index is a powerful tool for measuring how evenly or unevenly the employment in any region is distributed among its industries. In today’s blog, we’re exploring how the S-W index works in IMPLAN and what it means for your economic impact studies.

So, you’re hoping to gain insight and quantify the impact of an industry, a new or existing business, expected growth or changes, or a specific event to the economy of a particular region. Where do you even begin?

As renewable energies take center stage in political policies and public consciousness, IMPLAN is here to help you measure each project’s economic impact. Our recent post Resource Roundup: IMPLAN and Solar Energy focused on giving you the information you need to study the economic impact of a solar energy project. Much of that same information can also be applied to wind power projects. In today’s blog, we’re taking a look at the Offshore Wind Tax Credit Program and how IMPLAN can help you understand the economic impact of wind energy projects, whether you’re a developer, a state authority, or an accounting service provider.

As more and more people recognize the importance of protecting our planet, renewable energies like solar energy are taking center stage, transforming our environment as well as our economies.

2020 was an unusual year for sure — the pandemic, the great resignation, working remote, and more. IMPLAN's 2020 data holds a tremendous amount of valuable economic intelligence. 

It’s that time of year again. Here at IMPLAN, we mark the holiday season with our annual data release. That means 2020 data has arrived in the IMPLAN application!

In early August 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in the Senate. By the end of the month, the House of Representatives agreed on a September 27 deadline for voting on the bill, and given its bipartisan support, it is expected to pass there as well. This new bill focuses on investments in roads, railways, bridges, and broadband internet. It proposes $550 billion in new spending from 2022 to 2027, with the aim to improve sustainable transportation options, expand access to high-speed internet and clean drinking water, and upgrade our power infrastructure to facilitate the expansion of renewable energy.

These are exciting goals, backed by a lot of money. But what exactly will the economic impact of these investments look like? The ripple effect of this large amount of government spending can be expected to make a difference across the country, not just in the industries where it is initially spent, but also far beyond. We can get a clearer picture of the infrastructure bill’s impact on the economy through Input-Output Analysis performed by economists at IMPLAN Group, LLC, the leading provider of economic impact data and technology.

The world economy experienced drastic changes in 2020 as a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic. In order to address these drastic economic changes in our data, IMPLAN has released its second ever quarterly data set. The Evolving Economy - COVID Q3-2020 data captures the initial stages of the economic recovery in 2020. This data set, which is equipped to perform all forms of impact analysis modeling, is available now in the IMPLAN application.

Our webinar, The Economic Impact of a New Business Location, walked through the process for modeling the economic impact of a new business location. In the presentation, considerations for the construction and operations impacts were covered and examined in the context of the Lowe’s Design Center Tower project. If you missed the live presentation, you can watch the recording here. The discussion generated a number of questions highlighting important points about running these analyses. Check out what our economists had to say below:

2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for most of the world with seemingly very few bright spots to focus on. The emergence of COVID-19 has dramatically altered the way we live, perhaps permanently. Coronavirus-motivated mask mandates, regional shutdowns, capacity restrictions, and social distancing brought about economic uncertainty. The most commonly cited hope for a return to normalcy has been the widespread availability of a vaccine. Due to the fast-tracking of vaccine trials and significant government support, several effective vaccines appear to be on the horizon as we head into 2021. 

The public health benefit is straight-forward, however the economy is a very important concern to many. Anticipating the vast impact across the economy is incredibly difficult due to the unpredictability of consumer confidence in the midst of the pandemic. Despite this unpredictability, the sizable economic impact of investment in the vaccine manufacturing process can be readily estimated with Input-Output Analysis. Using publicly available data to define input values, IMPLAN has performed an analysis of the effect of the Federal government’s spending on vaccine manufacturing.