Swenson, David A.

February 2012

Government data on metropolitan areas are normally collected at the county level or the metropolitan region level.  The economic attributes of the core metropolitan cities are not regularly studied.  This analysis uses zip code level information on the number of business firms, payroll, payroll employees, as well as, separately, taxable sales to allocate relatively reliable county level economic estimates of Iowa's metropolitan area economies down to the core metropolitan cities' contributions.  This analysis allowed for a determination of total jobs, labor income, and value added (or GDP) that is generated in Iowa's 10 core metropolitan counties and the 10 metropolitan cities that anchor those economies.

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