| In performing various economic analyses for its clients, I have occasionally been asked to investigate the market
potential for various products and services in United States. The purpose of the studies is to understand the density of
demand within United States and the extent to which United States might be used as a point of distribution within
North America. From an economic perspective, however, United States does not represent a population within rigid
geographical boundaries, rather, it represents an area of dominant influence over markets in adjacent areas. This
influence varies from one industry to another, but also from one period of time to another.
In what follows, I summarize the economic potential for United States over the next five years for hundreds of
industries, categories and products. The goal of this report is to report my findings on the real economic potential, or
what an economist calls the latent demand, represented by United States when defined as an area of dominant
influence. The reader needs to realize that latent demand may or may not represent real sales. For many items, latent
demand is clearly observable in sales, as in the case for food or housing items. Consider, however, the category
"satellite launch vehicles". Clearly, there are no launch pads in United States used by the space industry to launch
satellites. However, the core benefit of the vehicles (e.g. telecommunications, etc.) is "consumed" by the area served
by United States. Without United States, in other words, the market for satellite launch vehicles would be lower for
the population in United States, North America, or the world in general. One needs to allocate, therefore, a portion
of the worldwide economic demand for launch vehicles to both North America and United States.
The data presented are the result of various spatial econometric and time-series forecasting models which, for each
category presented, are applied to forecast and allocate latent demand across all countries of the world and major
distribution centers or centers of dominant influence within each country. This is accomplished knowing that
economic fundamentals (e.g. income) generally vary from one country to another within a given country over time.
In this report, I report the allocation for each category for United States as an area of dominant influence in North
America and, potentially, the world. |
