Arrowhead Economic Analysis 

Arrowhead Center is available for consultative economic analysis for businesses, nonprofits, and governments. We have a track record providing impact analyses, feasibility studies, cost-benefit analysis, strategic plans and customized research projects to answer specific economic questions. These individual types of studies can be useful for businesses and organizations seeking answers to complex economic questions and to quantify the benefits or impacts of certain programs, industries, or activities. We are available for projects throughout the United States, however we have a unique expertise for projects in New Mexico, with strong familiarity with local and unique data sources and the nuances of these specific datasets. Our studies can be delivered as written reports, summary flyers, presentations, and/or online dashboards. In the event specialized expertise is necessary we can partner with faculty throughout New Mexico State University and experts in the Arrowhead Innovation Network to provide the subject matter expertise that is required. Publicly available research reports are available on this page. Use cases and more detailed descriptions of our most popular types of studies are explained as follows:

• Impact Analysis is an effective tool for demonstrating and quantifying the impact of projects that have positive or negative externalities and/or social impacts. Impacts are typically modeled using IMPLAN and can be estimated for state and county levels, and in some cases multiple regions. The resulting analysis provides estimates for the total impact of a specific project or activity, including direct, indirect, and induced jobs, and contributions to value added and total economic output. Resulting changes to revenues for specific taxes can be estimated as well. This can be very useful to show how a specific project or activity will benefit or harm an entire region. These impact studies can be used to:

• • Quantify the impact of grant funded programs, typically based on jobs created or revenue generated.
  • Quantify the benefit of specific businesses or specific projects, which can be useful to support funding requests for socially beneficial projects.
  • Quantify the impact of a specific industry or industry activity to show the importance of the industry or estimate the impact of restrictions or business closures.
  • Quantify the impact of specific policy decisions or recommendations.

• Strategic Plans for the purpose of developing overarching and/or tailored economic development strategies. Our team has specific expertise gathering input from stakeholders, building stakeholder buy-in, and synthesizing effective and data-driven economic development strategies. Specific examples of our work in this area includes The Border Task Force Report and the Santa Teresa Strategic Assessment. Additionally, we have prepared county-level economic base analyses that provide crucial insights and data for the development of Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) plans.
• Feasibility Studies are developed with the goal of estimating the feasibility of a certain project or business. These can be used to support decision making and in some cases can be required for certain types of funding requests. We can develop vetted and justified feasibility studies to provide our estimation of the feasibility of a specific business or project.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis can be useful for understanding the full costs and benefits of various projects. Typically this analysis incorporates social costs and benefits to provide a more complete picture of the benefit or harm caused by a specific project to all stakeholders. Cost-Benefit Analysis can be tailored to meet specific requirements or assumptions, as required by the client or prescribed by a particular grant opportunity.
• Customized Research can be useful to answer specific economic questions that don’t fit into normal categories. We have experience analyzing many of the unique New Mexico data sources including Gross Receipts Data which provides industry and location specific business revenue data for all businesses in New Mexico, Oil & Gas Severance Reporting which provide Oil & Gas Production and Taxation information for all counties in New Mexico, and the State Budget information sources - House Bill 2, Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, and General Fund Accruals. We also have experience with NREL’s ReEDS Model for long-range planning and forecasting in the power sector for a variety of assumptions.

If you are interested in our services, please contact Director, Economic Analysis: Dr. Kramer Winingham jkramer@nmsu.edu