Regional Economic Models for Performance Based Earthquake Engineering

Abstract

Regional economic impact models (REIMs) are needed for performance-based earthquake engineering and similar activities. The metropolitan-level performance measures that can be supported by earthquake engineering outputs are fundamentally economic, and regional economic impact models provide the logical link between engineering design decisions and policymaking. How well do REIMs consider the performance of structures (broadly defined to include infrastructure and lifelines) in these facilities’ role of facilitating regional economic performance? We have evaluated 19 REIMs of relatively recent vintage against 11 criteria. These include policy relevance, whether the model reports results for small spatial units, the level of industry disaggregation, the possibility to allow integration of models from various disciplines, whether multiperiod or dynamic analysis is possible, the extent to which key variables (including prices, technology and travel behavior) are endogenous, transferability between regions and countries, operationality, accessbility, updatability, and whether applications to earthquakes have been executed.