CHANGES IN LOCAL INCOME MULTIPLIERS OVER TIME

Abstract

Considerable interest has been shown in recent years in the calculation of regional income and/or employment multipliers. Their role in the formulation and evaluation of regional policy has been stressed by Wilson (1968) and some writers have been prepared to suggest that high levels of leakage and consequent low multipliers are causes of economic decline or slow growth in the peripheral regions just as much as are economic structure or locational disadvantages (Thirlwell, 1972). The early approaches to the calculation of income or employment multipliers generally used aggregate data on employment, where data on output were not available, national input—output tables to identify input mixes and generalised economic base concepts to distinguish local and nonlocal purchases and sales (Archibald, 1967; Brown et al, 1967; Steele, 1969). More recent work, however, had identified another approach, forsaking the use of aggregated national data sets and employing intensive survey methods of individual industrial plants, such as Greig's study of the pulp and paper mills at Fort William (1971), of educational establishments such as universities (Brownrigg, 1973; Lewes and Kirkness, 1973) or of service sectors such as tourism (Blake and MacDowell, 1967). More recently Lever (1974a) has introduced a more rigorous comparative method into the study of individual manufacturing establishments.