Allocating transportation costs between states

Hi Laurie. We have attached an Excel Template for you to consider in allocating your transportation costs among each state in the US. Based on your Forum Post, it might be better to allocate transportation among each state based on the state’s total transportation cost and the sum of these costs in the US. The template shows a brief example of how you might do this. This might work better than using employment to allocate transportation cost among states. Try this and see how it works. It may provide an improvement over the results you have now.

Hi, Thanks for the quick reply. Two questions on the transportation jobs we are trying to estimate: 1) I'm not following how the % of transportation cost for each state would be calculated in your example template. What is that number/a calculation of? All we will have is the difference between the portion of the price that goes to the coal mining company (mine mouth price) and the total valued added (delivered price). We're trying to figure out what the jobs are in coal mining versus in the transporting of the coal. (I think you understood the question, just want to be sure). 2) Can you confirm that I am understanding how to figure out the employment effects of a change in final demand for coal? We have the total change in fuel expenditures for a power plant. We believe that we need to disaggregate this between the mine mouth price and the value added, in order to figure out how many coal mining jobs are lost versus jobs in the value added portion of the delivered price, which is largely transportation. Is that correct? Some additional questions: 3) For the 2012 IMPLAN state expenditure employment multipliers, why are there direct jobs in some states that have no coal mining for a change in final demand for coal? Are these direct jobs that are created in other states? I thought direct jobs for running a particular state are only in the state itself. Is that not the case? As an example, FL has a direct multiplier of 3.31. Does this mean that for $1 million of coal purchased by a FL power plant will create 3.31 jobs in FL, or 3.31 jobs in coal mining anywhere in the country? (Or something else entirely?) 4) How does IMPLAN determine where the coal that is purchased by a power plant in a state is from? Thank you! Laurie

Also, what is the "Adjustment Factor" in the spreadsheet and why is it the same for each example state?

Hi Laurie. The adjustment factor is the same when normalizing the series of data to insure that it sums to 100% as is the case in our Example Spreadsheet. Sometimes you may hear analysts use the term adjusting or compressing the series to keep the relative percentage shares essentially the same, although the actual values will change. If you calculate each state's share of the total in our Example Spreadsheet before and after the adjustment, you will notice that the shares remained the same. Again, we are adjusting the spread between the data but not the actual shares of each state in the data. Finally, as far as the multipliers are concerned, unless you have regional data or state-by-state data, all the multipliers will be national averages as you state in your last question. We hope this helps.

Thanks. Did you see my questions in #18210 previous message? Here they are again: Hi, Thanks for the quick reply. Two questions on the transportation jobs we are trying to estimate: 1) I'm not following how the % of transportation cost for each state would be calculated in your example template. What is that number/a calculation of? All we will have is the difference between the portion of the price that goes to the coal mining company (mine mouth price) and the total valued added (delivered price). We're trying to figure out what the jobs are in coal mining versus in the transporting of the coal. (I think you understood the question, just want to be sure). 2) Can you confirm that I am understanding how to figure out the employment effects of a change in final demand for coal? We have the total change in fuel expenditures for a power plant. We believe that we need to disaggregate this between the mine mouth price and the value added, in order to figure out how many coal mining jobs are lost versus jobs in the value added portion of the delivered price, which is largely transportation. Is that correct? Some additional questions: 3) For the 2012 IMPLAN state expenditure employment multipliers, why are there direct jobs in some states that have no coal mining for a change in final demand for coal? Are these direct jobs that are created in other states? I thought direct jobs for running a particular state are only in the state itself. Is that not the case? As an example, FL has a direct multiplier of 3.31. Does this mean that for $1 million of coal purchased by a FL power plant will create 3.31 jobs in FL, or 3.31 jobs in coal mining anywhere in the country? (Or something else entirely?) 4) How does IMPLAN determine where the coal that is purchased by a power plant in a state is from? Thank you! Laurie

In addition to my previous questions, I now have some follow ups after speaking with support staff. It seems that in sector 21 coal mining, in 2008 the total employed was approximately 80,000. Now, in 2012, the total number is 105,000. So: 5) Has the definition of coal mining occupations in sector 21 expanded? Coal mining has been on the decline, so I can't see how the total could increase by 25,000 unless more types of workers have been defined as direct coal miners. 6)If the definition has expanded, in what way has it expanded?

Hi Laurie, According to QCEW data, coal mining employment was 81,095 in 2008 and 85,925 in 2012. The difference between the 2012 QCEW data and the 2012 IMPLAN data is proprietors because one mine can have many owners through a LLC. [url=http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/MT_coal.cfm?src=Coal-b1]The following documents[/url] also suggests that productivity in coal production has actually decreased in recent years. Hope this helps, Please let us know if you have any additional questions.