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contact info

Director: Geoffrey J. D. Hewings; hewings@illinois.edu
Location: 607 S. Matthews; Urbana, IL 61801-3671
Phone/Fax: 217-333-4740 (phone); 217-244-9339 (fax)

Welcome to R | E | A | L

The Regional Economics Applications Laboratory focuses on the development and use of analytical models for urban and regional forecasting and economic development.

REAL's mission is to provide timely, high quality analytical economic information for a variety of uses such as public policy decision making by public sector agencies and for strategic marketing in the private sector. REAL's capabilities revolve around comprehensive state and metropolitan models that integrate econometric and input-output analysis to provide for both impact and forecasting analyses.

While REAL's primary focus has been on the economies of the Midwest, REAL has collaborated in the development of models for several regions on the east coast. In addition, two models have been constructed for states in Brazil and a third is under construction. A model for the Jakarta Metropolitan region is also under construction.

REAL draws its staff from cooperating institutions and advanced graduate students in the fields of economics, geography, urban and regional planning, computer science and mathematics. Many of the projects the students work on then become the basis for thesis and dissertations.

Monitoring the Economy

- Chicago Business Activity increased in February. The CBAI was 105.2 in February, a slight increase from 104.8 in January. The increase is attributed mainly to the improvement of retail sector and positive job growth in manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors in the Chicago region. more..(Released: 04-18-2012)

- IL Job Report - March: The Illinois official unemployment rate fell for the sixth consecutive month, dropping -0.3%p to 9.1%. The shadow unemployment rates for Illinois, RMW and the Nation were 11.8%, 13.2% and 12.1%, compared to official unemployment rates of 9.1%, 7.7% and 8.3%. more. (Released: 04-17-2012)

- MSA Job Index - March: By Feb 2013 four MSAs, namely, Bloomington-Normal, Chicago, Kankakee and Rockford will experience positive employment growth. On the other hand, five other MSAs, Champaign-Urbana-Rantoul, Davenport, Decatur, Springfield and Peoria are likely to encounter negative employment growth. more. (Released: 04-23-2012)

- Illinois Economic Review Report - March: The one-year ahead forecast for total non-farm job changes has increased to a range of (12,300~46,900) from the previous range of (17,000 ~ 23,900). In the recovery scenario, MSA Springfield has almost recovered to the employment level before the start of the recession in Dec 2007. more.. (Released: 04-20-2012)

- Housing Tax incentive: While 84,559 homebuyers in Illinois put in a claim for the Federal Home Buyer Tax Credit, only 25,504 sales were actually boosted by the incentive more..(Released: 09-21-2010)

Data Release Schedule for 2012 Job Index Reports (State and MSA) and Illinois Economic Reviews

Previous releases-

Workshop

9th EU-REAL Meeting, "Regional Growth and Economic Development" more..

4 - 5 October 2012
Badajoz, Extremadura-SPAIN

Abstracts should be prepared in PDF-format and should be sent to Miguel A. Márquez (mmarquez@unex.es) or Julián Ramajo (ramajo@unex.es).

Deadlines:
Submission of papers: 1st August 2012
Notification of acceptance: 31st August 2012