IMPLAN is a regional economic model that provides a mathematical accounting of the flow of money, goods, and services through a region’s economy. The model provides estimates of how a specific economic activity translates into jobs and income for the region. It includes the ripple effect (also called the “multiplier effect”) of changes in economic sectors that may not be directly impacted by management actions, but are linked to industries that are directly impacted. In IMPLAN, these ripple effects are termed indirect impacts (for changes in industries that sell inputs to the industries that are directly impacted) and induced impacts (for changes in household spending as household income increases or decreases due to the changes in production).

This analysis used IMPLAN 2007; prior to running the model, cost and price data were converted to a consistent dollar year (2008) using regional and sector-specific adjustment factors from the IMPLAN model. The values in this appendix are expressed in year 2008 dollars so that the earnings and employment estimates can be easily compared to the latest (i.e., 2008) earnings and employment data available from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The current IMPLAN model has 440 economic sectors, of which 188 are represented in the four Planning Area counties. This analysis involved direct changes in economic activity for 33 IMPLAN economic sectors, as well as changes in all other related sectors due to the ripple effect. The IMPLAN production coefficients were modified to reflect the interaction of producing sectors in the Planning Area. As a result, the calibrated model does a better job of generating multipliers and the subsequent impacts that reflect the interaction between and among the sectors in the Planning Area compared to a model using unadjusted national coefficients. For instance, worker productivity in oil and gas production is higher in Wyoming than the national average. Key variables used in the IMPLAN model were filled in using data specific to Wyoming, including employment estimates, labor earnings, and total industry output.