The Variation of Estimated Impacts from Five Regional Input-Output Models

Since construction of a regional input-output model for impact analysis is very time-consuming, a market for ready-made regionally customized model systems has developed. This article compares five such systems. It is based on a survey of five modelers who estimated impacts of seven hypothetical regional development scenarios. The article presents the estimates generated; then compares them, focusing on the degree of variation among the estimates and also comparing them to a survey model's results. Although estimated impacts were relatively similar for regionwide output and income impacts, there was great dissimilarity among employment impact estimates.