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IMPLAN

Also called IMPLAN model.

IMPLAN, short for IMpact analysis for PLANning, is a commercial input-output modeling system and regional data set developed by the US Forest Service in the 1980s and privatized in the 1990s, now one of the models most often used to estimate EB-5 job creation.

What it decides

No EB-5 authority approves, requires or forbids any particular economic model. 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(v)(I) permits an investor to rely on economically and statistically valid methodologies, 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(iii)(I) requires a regional center proposal to rest on economically and statistically valid and transparent forecasting tools, and 8 CFR 204.6(m)(7)(ii) allows reasonable methodologies including multiplier tables and other economically or statistically valid forecasting devices. None of those texts names a model, and the USCIS Policy Manual at 6 USCIS-PM G.2 names none either. The closest USCIS ever came was the Adjudicators Field Manual update of 11 December 2009, which recorded that regional centers typically use RIMS II or IMPLAN; that described practice, it did not approve a list. So the model named in an offering decides nothing by itself. What decides the petition is what the Policy Manual actually reviews: whether the direct jobs, expenditures or revenues fed into the model were shown to be reasonable, and whether the multipliers and the assumptions about the project's geographic impact are reasonable.

Governed by USDA Forest Service, Economic, Social, and Ecosystem Services Analysis (https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/policy/analysis); 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(5)(E)(iii)(I) and (E)(v)(I) (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1153&num=0&edition=prelim); 8 CFR 204.6(m)(7)(ii) (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-8/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-204/subpart-A/section-204.6); 6 USCIS-PM G.2, Immigrant Petition Eligibility Requirements (https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-6-part-g-chapter-2); USCIS Adjudicators Field Manual update AD09-38, 11 December 2009 (https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/memos/Adjudicating_of_EB-5_121109.pdf)

Where this is explained properly

Pages here that go into implan rather than mentioning it.

Related terms

  • RIMS IIRIMS II is the Bureau of Economic Analysis multiplier set that estimates how much total output, value added, earnings and employment a given change in final demand generates in a chosen group of US counties, and it is the model behind many EB-5 regional center job studies.
  • REMIREMI stands for Regional Economic Models, Inc., the firm whose Policy Insight simulation model the Department of Energy used to estimate direct and indirect job impacts in its State Energy Program evaluation. In EB-5 practice the name is used as shorthand for the model itself, which job studies name alongside RIMS II and IMPLAN.
  • Input-output modelAn input-output model is an accounting framework of interindustry purchases that estimates how spending on a project spreads into output and jobs across a regional economy. In EB-5 it is the standard way a regional center investor shows job creation, and it produces estimated jobs rather than a verified headcount.
  • MultiplierA multiplier is the ratio an input-output model applies to an initial change in a project's spending, earnings or jobs to estimate the total change in output, value added, earnings or jobs in a chosen industry and region.

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