Agricultural Trade Multipliers
Agricultural Trade Multipliers provide annual estimates of employment and output effects of trade in farm and food products on the U.S. economy (See Effects of Trade on the U.S. Economy - 2018). These effects, when expressed as multipliers, reflect the amount of economic activity and jobs generated by agricultural exports.
The Agricultural Trade Multipliers estimates:
- Are derived from the 2007 Benchmark Input-Output (I/O) tables published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis;
- Are adjusted annually to account for changes in prices and labor productivity (see the nonbase year estimation section of the Methodology in the Documentation page for details);
- Include 56 agriculturally based commodities or combinations of agriculture, food processing, tobacco, and fiber and textile products;
- Are only for open multipliers at either the producer (farm or manufacturer) or port stage of export (see below for further detail); and
- Are downloadable in Microsoft Excel format.
Users of the Agricultural Trade Multipliers App have two options to display multipliers:
- Predefined ERS estimates for the most recent calendar year available on Effects of Trade on the U.S. Economy - 2018
- Estimates generated by an interactive calculator that enables users to select their own basket of exports from the list of predefined estimates and/or apply a new set of trade margins to the commodity or basket of goods (see below instructions on how to use the ATM calculator).
Step-by-step instructions on how to use the Agricultural Trade Multiplier (ATM) calculator
Step 1 – Select a commodity using either the predefined ERS commodity groupings or the commodity selection tree. Note that you cannot make concurrent selections from both the predefined groupings and the selection tree. To select from the predefined groupings (all agricultural exports, farm commodities, all crops, livestock, nonfarm commodities, bulk commodities, and high-value commodities) click the radio button to the left of the grouping of interest. Only one group from the ERS predefined list can be selected.
To select from the commodity selection tree, click on the box next to each commodity or commodity group. A check mark (√) will appear next to each selection. At any time, you can click checked boxes to undo selections from the list, thus enabling you to tailor your analysis to a single commodity or any combination thereof. Once selections have been made, click the "Next" button to proceed to the next step.
Step 2 – Select the type of multiplier by clicking the radio buttons corresponding to either the producer or port level of the export process. The producer level includes the activity embodied in the commodity as it leaves the farm gate or manufacturer's door before shipping and handling charges have been added. By definition, both the ERS and user margins for a producer-value multiplier are set to 100 percent for producer and zero for both transportation and wholesale/retail trade. You cannot select new margins for the producer level. If producer-level multipliers suit your needs, select Producer and proceed to step 3.
If you want to input your own trade margins, select Port. Port-value multipliers reflect the value of the commodity as it leaves the farm gate or manufacturer's door and shipping, handling, and storage charges between the farm or manufacturer and the port. The ATM calculator allows you to adjust the producer, transportation, and wholesale/retail margins. Once you select Port, the calculator will generate a table. Input your margins in the table. The three margins can range from 0 to 100 and must be a whole-integer value. The sum of the three margins must equal 100. Click the Save Margins button to confirm your margins sum to 100, save them for analysis, and proceed to step 3. If your margins do not sum to 100, a warning box will pop up and ask you to correct your entries. Users are able to experiment with margins that differ from the ERS margins, in which case their estimated multipliers will differ from the ERS published results. On the other hand, selecting Port-value multipliers and entering the ERS Margins will provide multipliers that most closely approximate the published ERS multipliers, allowing for rounding error.
Step 3 – Click the Review Results button to create and display your model results table. If you selected more than 10 commodities, the table will be displayed over multiple pages. The number of pages will be noted in the blue bar at the bottom of the table. Click on a page number to display that page in the table.
All tables can be printed and/or downloaded in Microsoft Excel 
format.
To start over click the Start Over button.
See the Documentation page for information about assumptions and methodology underlying the ERS Estimates, as well as the Glossary for more information.
