Revisiting interindustry employment requirements in nonmetropolitan economies

Using two separate data sets a disaggregate (multi-industry) economic base model is estimated for the nonmetropolitan U.S. in 1980, 1990, and 2000. One data set is comprised of 196 small towns located in four Southwestern states; the other is comprised of 577 micropolitan counties located across the nation. A new shortcut method was first used to generate the basic-nonbasic employment splits for eight major industries. Then the cross-industry nonbasic (local) employment requirements were estimated by applying ordinary least-squares regression. These local job requirements are shown to vary within industries, across different industries, and across the two data sets. Earlier estimates of interindustry employment impacts, which were based on much smaller data sets, are shown to be overly restrictive. New projects in manufacturing and government, often favored by policymakers, would appear to have relatively small but evenly distributed impacts on local employment in nonmetropolitan economies. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.