Why aren’t the totals for Table 4-1 and Table 2-2 the same?
The totals on Table 4-1 “Economic Impacts of U.S. Cooperatives: Aggregate Impacts by Sector” include both the direct business activity of cooperatives, and the additional impacts from the direct business activity of cooperatives that ripple through the broader economy. These additional impacts result from the fact that a cooperative’s costs include outlays that are revenue for other businesses. Wages, dividends and patronage refunds that are paid out by the cooperative become the personal income of individuals whose spending is the source of revenue for other businesses. The study used IMPLAN analysis to estimate these secondary impacts (see Section 8.1 IMPLAN Methodology). Table 2-2 reports direct economic activity by cooperative type; the additional impacts estimated by the IMPLAN model were not included. As a result, the totals for economic activity in this table are less than the totals on Table 4-1. There is some double-counting in this table. The electric utilities and credit uni
