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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.

NEW!:REAL Poster Session 2014 [Dec. 11th, 2014]

NEW!: 25h Anniversary of REAL this Wednesday Nov. 12th, 2014 at Washington DC. [program] [Facebook]

R|E|A|L Virtual Yearbook [here]

Presentation about REAL Academic and Friendship Networks [here]

Check the 2013 work of current researchers at REAL here

Monitoring the Economy

- Illinois Economic Review Report -December:

----The current recovery rate of Chicago from the last recession is 80.34%.

----The ratio of current employment level to historical peak is 123.11% for the US, 93.11% for the RMW, and 67.92% for Illinois.

----In the 12-month forecast for Illinois, the only two sectors that are predicted to decline are Government (4,600 less jobs) and Information (1,500 less jobs), and Illinois is predicted to have a growth of between 56,700 and 58,100 jobs.

----Rockford had the most noteworthy growth performance for two consecutive months (0.56% in October, 0.25% in November).

----Since July 2014, Champaign –Urbana has remained in the first place on the 12-month growth performance table.

----Bloomington-Normal has been declining for three consecutive months. Additionally, in every month since 2013 February, Bloomington-Normal and Peoria had negative 12-month aggregate employment growth.

----The major geographic divisions, Chicago-Downstate and Metro-Rural had mixed growth performance, while Chicago Upstate declined for the first time after 2014 May (-0.03%). Since the job recovery resumed in Jan 2010 in Illinois, Chicago Upstate has shown an average growth rate of 10.36% which is the highest among all the IL MSAs; Bloomington-Normal has experienced the lowest average growth rate, -4.60%.

---The 12-month forecasts show that the greatest growth in Chicago is likely to happen for Construction (2.72%) and its greatest decline would happen for Manufacturing (-1.30%). The forecasts also show that Peoria will have major growth (2,800 to 3,100 more jobs) compared to other MSAs. more (Released: 12-30-2014)

- IL Job Report -December:

----The Information Sector reversed its performance: In October this sector declined at all three levels – National, RMW and Illinois, but in November it increased in all three.

----In November, Illinois shadow unemployment rate dropped below 11% for the first time since Feb 2011, and RMW’s shadow unemployment rate was the lowest since March 2009.

---Every sector in Illinois had positive growth except TTU (8,700 fewer jobs), which had declined for two consecutive months. This performance is in sharp contrast to last month, when only three sectors had positive growth. The top-three job-gain sectors of Illinois in November were Leisure & hospitality (up 1,900 jobs), Construction (up 2,100 jobs) and Manufacturing (up 3,600 jobs).

----At the national level, no sector declined in November 2014. Additionally, Professional and business services sector had been the greatest employment contributor since June 2014, while Trade, transportation and utilities (TTU) has also remained as one of the top-three contributors since September 2014.

----Total non-farm employment of RMW had not posted negative growth since March 2014, and that of the US since October 2010. Illinois has not presented uninterrupted growth yet, as the longest continuous growth of Illinois in 2014 was from May to September. more (Released: 12-30-2014)

- MSA Job Report -December:

----Rockford had the most noteworthy growth performance for two consecutive months (0.56% in October, 0.25% in November).

----Since July 2014, Champaign –Urbana has remained in the first place on the 12-month growth performance table.

----The 12-month forecasts show that the greatest growth in Chicago is likely to happen for Construction (2.72%) and its greatest decline would happen for Manufacturing (-1.30%). The forecasts also show that Peoria will have major growth (2,800 to 3,100 more jobs) compared to other MSAs. more (Released: 12-31-2014)

-The Chicago Business Activity Index (CBAI) - November: The Chicago Business Activity Index (CBAI) decreased to to 93.5 in November from 103.1 in October. The fall is attributed to negative job growth in the non-manufacturing sector and to the decline in retail activities in the Chicago area. more (Released: 01-16-2015)

- MSA Business Index and Forecast - December: According to the forecast for October 2015, MSA Bloomington, Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, Decatur, Peoria and Rockford are likely to perform less well over this period than Chicago. All the other MSAs will compare favorably to Chicago. (more Released: 12-15-2014)

- 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)

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