Alumnus gives the gift of economic impact analysis

Departmental News

Posted: December 19, 2024

Economics Alumnus Charles Lehman (B.A. 1963) has donated $30,000 to UNM for a campus-wide license for IMPLAN, the leading software for assessing economic impact. IMPLAN allows economists, geographers, planners, and other researchers to evaluate the economic and environmental impact of different economic development projects and policies.  A handful of UNM economists have used IMPLAN to estimate the economic contributions to the state of existing and proposed entities and policies, including the health sciences center, the 19 New Mexico pueblos, U.S. military installations, oil and gas regulation, alcohol taxes, and community micro-grids. Now this powerful tool will be available to a much wider group of UNM researchers and students.

IMPLAN is industry standard for input-output models, which were developed by Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief. Leontief’s work quantified the structural relationships among industries and demonstrated that growth in any one industry creates ripple effects throughout the economy.

Campus-wide access will support research, enhance grant-activity, measure progress toward UNM 2040’s economic development goals, and train students for jobs in planning, economic analysis, program evaluation, and related fields.

Lehman graduated from UNM 1965 with degrees in Economics and Mathematics. He was an economist with the New Mexico Department for Workforce Solutions (then the Department of Labor) for over 30 years. In his work with the state, he recognized the value of input-output studies and he is enthusiastic about supporting a project that will bring input-output analysis to the wider UNM campus community.

Lehman’s gift covers one-third of the license cost over three years. The Office of the Vice President for Research, the Department of Economics and the UNM Bureau for Business and Economic Research (BBER) will cover the remaining costs.