Identifying channels of economic impacts: An inter-regional structural path analysis for Alaska fisheries

Alaska fisheries have strong spillover effects on economies of other states (especially the state of Washington) due to their dependence on imports from these other states. Several studies attempt to develop inter-regional or multi-regional economic impact models to investigate these spillover effects, and calculate the multipliers for Alaska fisheries. However, these multipliers measure only total economic impacts, failing to provide fishery managers with the information on how and along what channels these total economic impacts are generated and transmitted throughout the regions. This paper uses an inter-regional structural path analysis (IRSPA) to identify the various channels (paths) through which the economic impacts of an initial shock to a seafood sector are transmitted, amplified, and spilled over to other regions, within an inter-regional social accounting matrix (IRSAM) framework for two US regions – Alaska and the rest of US (RUS).