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Economic Contribution
Understand the economic footprint of companies, associations, universities, nonprofits, and industries using spending, payroll, employment, revenue, or a combination of inputs.
Modern economic analysis platform
Economic Impact Analysis Without the Complexity
Model economic contribution, employment, payroll, investments, and site selection across the United States, states, and counties through a modern, guided workflow.
Built by an economist. Designed for decision-makers.
Analyze economic activity from multiple angles.
RIPL is designed for practical analysis — from organizational footprint studies to investment comparisons and site selection decisions.
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Site Selection
Compare economic outcomes across states and regions to support investment and location decisions.
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Investment Impact
Quantify the economic effects of capital projects, infrastructure investments, and development initiatives.
How economic impact analysis works.
Spending creates a chain reaction.
Economic impact analysis follows the path from initial spending to supplier activity, worker income, household spending, and additional economic activity.
The result is a clear summary of total gross output, GDP, labor income, and jobs supported by that activity.
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Direct Effects
The activity being analyzed—such as company spending, revenue, payroll, employment, capital investment, or operating expenses. Employment can remain a direct jobs input or serve as a proxy for industry sales/output.
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Indirect Effects
Supply-chain activity supported when vendors and suppliers purchase goods and services to meet demand.
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Induced Effects
Household spending supported when workers spend income on housing, restaurants, healthcare, retail, and services.
What economic impact studies measure
RIPL summarizes economic activity using metrics that are commonly used in executive reports, public presentations, and stakeholder communications.
Gross Output
The total value of economic activity supported, including sales and business revenue across directly and indirectly affected industries.
GDP
The value added to the economy after excluding intermediate purchases. This is often the cleanest measure of economic contribution.
Jobs
The employment supported by the activity. For multi-year studies, RIPL reports jobs as an annual average rather than a cumulative job-year total.
Labor Income
The compensation supported by the activity, including wages, salaries, and employer-paid benefits associated with supported jobs.
From spending to economic impact
From activity to results.
RIPL connects spending, employment, payroll, revenue, and investment activity to the broader economic channels they support, then summarizes those effects in decision-ready metrics.
The goal is to make the mechanics of economic impact analysis easier to understand, easier to explain, and easier to communicate.
Economic impact analysis follows the path from direct spending to supplier activity, worker income, household spending, and additional economic activity.
Direct Spending
An organization spends money, hires workers, or invests in a project.
Supplier Activity
Vendors and suppliers respond to demand throughout the supply chain.
Wages & Salaries
Supported activity generates income for workers across industries.
Household Spending
Workers spend income on housing, food, healthcare, retail, and services.
Additional Economic Activity
Those spending flows support broader output, GDP, labor income, and jobs.
Economic Results
Example summary
Gross Output
$482M
GDP
$271M
Labor Income
$158M
Jobs
2,140
RIPL translates spending, employment, payroll, revenue, and investment activity into the metrics decision-makers expect to see.
Use the information you already have.
RIPL supports multiple input methods in one analysis and shows users how assumptions are translated before the model runs.
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Employment and payroll
Enter direct employment by industry and location, or use employment as a proxy for sales/output with an industry- and region-specific estimate shown for approval. Add payroll to capture wage-supported household spending.
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Flexible activity inputs
Combine vendor purchases, industry spending, revenue or total activity, operating expenses, capital spending, and annual schedules in the same project.
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Decision-ready results
Explore national, state, and county impacts; direct, indirect, and induced effects; industries, occupations, wages, GDP, output, jobs, taxes, comparisons, trends, and exportable reports.
Contribution and impact are not the same thing.
A good analysis is clear about whether it measures an existing footprint or the effect of a new change.
Economic Contribution
Measures the economic footprint of existing activity.
Current operations
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Economic footprint
Useful for companies, universities, hospitals, nonprofits, trade associations, and industries communicating their role in a regional economy.
Economic Impact
Measures the effect of a change, project, investment, or event.
New activity
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Change in economy
Useful for site selection, facility expansions, infrastructure projects, capital investments, events, and policy scenarios.
Methodology
RIPL uses a multiregional input-output framework to trace direct activity through supplier relationships and wage-supported household spending. Users can model national, state, or county activity from spending, revenue, payroll, employment, capital investment, and operating expenses. Employment may be entered as direct jobs or converted to an industry- and region-specific output estimate for user approval.
The model applies industry relationships, employment and wage ratios, value-added ratios, and occupation staffing patterns to estimate output, GDP, labor income, jobs, occupations, and fiscal effects. Results are model-based estimates intended to support planning, comparison, communication, and decision-making.
Use economic analysis to communicate with confidence.
RIPL helps translate operational data into economic metrics that executives, boards, public agencies, and stakeholders can understand.
Business advocacy
Site selection
Grant support
Board reporting
Public policy
Capital projects
Industry studies
Stakeholder outreach
Ready to try RIPL?
RIPL is currently accepting beta users. Request early access to explore economic contribution studies, site selection analysis, and investment impact assessment through a guided workflow.