Every community faces the same question: where should limited public resources go?
Questions we answer
- What is the economic impact of this investment or initiative, and how do we demonstrate the credibility of those estimates?
- Where should we direct limited public resources to generate the greatest return?
- What industries should we focus on, and what assets do we already have to build from?
- What economic development strategy will produce measurable results for this community?
How we work
ESI structures every engagement around a decision the client needs to make. Impact studies, economic development strategies, and sector analyses draw on depth across real estate, infrastructure, policy, and institutional economics. Sector and workforce analysis integrates talent supply, industry demand, and public investment. Work includes industry cluster assessment, sectoral growth strategy, and workforce ecosystem mapping.
What we deliver
- Economic impact analysis
- The jobs, output, and earnings a project or program generates, traced through direct, indirect, and induced effects.
- Fiscal impact modeling
- How a development or policy change moves a jurisdiction's revenues and service costs.
- Incentives evaluation
- Whether a TIF, abatement, or grant program is worth its cost, and how to structure it to perform.
- Cost-benefit and return-on-investment analysis
- A defensible accounting of what an investment returns against what it costs.
- Economic development strategy
- A prioritized, implementable plan for where a community should focus its growth.
- Industry cluster assessment and sector strategy
- Where a region can compete, and what it takes to grow target sectors.
- Life sciences and advanced manufacturing strategy
- Sector strategy for the high-growth industries communities most want to attract.
- Workforce ecosystem mapping and analysis
- How talent supply, employer demand, and training line up, and where the gaps are.
- Scenario planning and revenue forecasting
- Forward-looking models that tie economic drivers to fiscal outcomes under different cases.
Featured projects
Economic Development and Sector Strategy · 2025
The Economic Impact of the New Jersey Innovation Centers
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Economic Development and Sector Strategy · 2025
Philadelphia After Dark: Key Drivers and Trends in Philadelphia’s Nighttime Economy
Read the report
Economic Development and Sector Strategy · 2024



