'The NEIMO development effort is as ambitious as any in regional science. In addition to immense data handling issues faced are the numerous conceptual and theoretical hurdles these researchers have cleared so adeptly. the volume's chapters present many of the critical areas of analysis to which analytical frameworks like NIEMO can be put, and demonstrate what can be accomplished when a group of dedicated scholars focus their collective energy on the development of computational models of complex social system' - Randall Jackson, Director of West Virginia University, US This book develops a national economic impact model to estimate the effects of simulated terrorist attacks and natural disasters on individual US States and economic sectors. the model, called NIEMO (The National Interstate Economic Model) looks at interindustry relationships and interregional trade. the model (with 47 sectors and 52 regions) is highly disaggregated and this strengthens its accuracy. the terrorist attacks examined include theme parks, bridges and tunnels in the national highway system, attempts to shoot down airplanes, the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, and a bomb at a baseball stadium during a game. the natural disasters are almost all real world: Hurricane Katrina, the Joplin Tornado, the Gulf Oil Spill and Hurricane Sandy. the exception is the effects on State economies of closing all international borders to keep out a global pandemic.

One chapter does not deal with a disaster but rather the effects of the widening and deepening of the Panama Canal on US ports trade. the economic impacts vary in magnitude. for example, the destruction of bridges and tunnels would be quite mild in terms of raising interstate highway freight costs while the shooting down of a plane could have massive repercussions. Similarly, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy had disastrous consequences while the effects of the Joplin Tornado were quite modest.