New Features in Leap
November 2007

LEAP designers are excited to share a range of new or extended capabilities. With growing experience of its relative strengths and incorporating the needs of economic development professionals, LEAP now includes new measures in the following areas:

• Delivery market,
• Access to international border, and
• Access to international air gateway.

When combined, these new variables broaden the capacity for improvement for a given Study Area through the Diagnosis or Policy Analysis modules by expanding the reach of an area's markets beyond the local level. Further improvements have also been made in terms of Market Access (which in LEAP is characterized by Population within 40 minutes). Results based on a new regression analysis for industries used in LEAP provided the effects of activity on expanding the reachable market - both for consumers and workers.

These effects are representative of scale economies and population thresholds for location of businesses. We have also updated many of the cost factors used in the model. With these additions and enhancements, it is our belief that LEAP is a more powerful, practical tool for economic developers.

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