11-09-2017, 04:38 PM
Effective planning of public and private projects and programs at the state and local levels requires a systematic analysis of the economic impacts of projects and programs in the affected regions. At the same time, systematic analysis of economic impacts should account for inter-industry relations within regions, because these relationships determine to a large extent how regional economies are likely to respond to changes in projects and programs. Thus, regional input-output multipliers (I-O), which represent inter-industry relations within regions, are useful tools for regional economic impact analysis. In the 1970s, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) developed a method for estimating regional IO multipliers known as RIMS (Regional Industrial Multiplier System) based on the work of Garnick and Drake.1 In the 1980s BEA completed an enhancement of RIMS, known as RIMS II, and published a manual for RIMS II users.2 In 1992, BEA published a second edition of the manual, in which the multipliers were based on more recent data and improved methodology. BEA is now making a third edition of the manual available in response to users' requests for further discussion of the data they must provide to use RIMS II and the sources of data and methods used to estimate the multiplier. The multipliers in the third edition reflect I-O data for 1987, the most recent year of reference for which BEA's national I-O data is available.