These include cost-benefit analyses to evaluate the net costs of public-sector projects such as military housing, flood protection, and government research and development facilities and programs; financial feasibility evaluations of public-private partnerships for outsourced facilities and services; and economic impact studies quantifying the benefits of data transfer standards in the transportation and electronics industries. Our economic and socioeconomic impact assessments have applied econometric and input-output techniques to major Federally-funded or approved projects such as military base realignments and closures (BRAC), weapons systems deployments in the US and abroad, offshore oil and gas development, major fossil fuel plant construction, reuse plans for closed military installations, high-speed rail system construction and operation, uranium mining projects, and others.
Assuring the economic viability of certain economic sectors – aerospace, aircraft, ground transportation, information technology, and essential metals, for example – is a vital interest of the US Department of Defense. We have assisted the US Air Force in determining the impacts of major defense systems on national and regional economic activity.
We have accomplished many regional and microeconomic assessments of industries of key interest. We have assisted the US Environmental Protection Agency in assessing the outlook for West Coast port trade volumes and prepared long-term trade and economic forecasts for the Southern California Association of Governments. We have provided regional tourism assessments evaluating the characteristics of visitor demand as a step in promoting tourism as a “clean export industry”. This has helped to bring significant economic benefits to regions while encouraging the preservation or development of the assets that create visitor demand. Additionally, we assisted the states of Alaska and California in determining appropriate policies for fishery resource use based on market demands from recreational and commercial sources. We have evaluated the probable size of markets newly created by advances in technology, changes in regulatory requirements, or other institutional factors.