UT Martin · College of Business & Global Affairs
Applied economic research, rigorous impact analysis, and entrepreneurship-ecosystem development for West Tennessee and beyond. We train student consultants and produce publicly useful data that informs real decisions.
About EBIL
EBIL bridges academic economic research and the real-world needs of businesses, municipalities, and entrepreneurs across West Tennessee. We train student consultants, produce publicly useful data, and partner with organizations to generate economic evidence that informs decisions.
What we offer
Analytical services for businesses, nonprofits, and local governments — from quick economic estimates to full-scope impact studies.
IMPLAN-based input–output modeling to quantify the local and regional economic footprint of businesses, events, or public investments. Reports suitable for grant applications, stakeholder presentations, and policy advocacy.
Construction and maintenance of localized consumer price indices — including the Martin CPI — to support contract negotiations, public planning, and business benchmarking with real regional data.
Economic evaluation of proposed policies, zoning decisions, or public investments: cost–benefit analysis, distributional effects, and scenario modeling to support evidence-based governance.
Survey design, experimental methods, and market research on consumer preferences, willingness to pay, and competitive positioning — particularly in agricultural, food, and beverage markets.
Analysis of startup activity, small-business density, access to capital, and supporting infrastructure to benchmark regional entrepreneurship and identify development opportunities.
Farm-level economics, supply-chain analysis, regional food systems, and value-added agricultural markets including the wine, beer, and spirits industries.
County- and census-tract-level economic mapping, inequality visualization, and spatial analysis of business clusters, income distributions, and opportunity zones.
Supervised projects pairing trained EBIL student analysts with regional businesses and nonprofits for structured research assignments and economic deliverables.
Interactive public-facing dashboards tracking regional indicators, employment trends, price levels, and business-formation rates for West Tennessee communities.
EBIL Data Product · Local Economic Indicators
A locally constructed consumer price index for Martin, Tennessee, tracking a representative basket of goods and services relevant to area households and businesses. Unlike national indices, it reflects local market realities.
About 200 tracked items are priced on the first Wednesday of each month across Martin-area vendors. Item-level price relatives are indexed to January 2025, aggregated within elementary categories using Jevons geometric means, and combined into roughly 26 expenditure-weighted sub-groups using BLS consumer-expenditure weights, with renormalization when a sub-group is temporarily incomplete. Figures are not seasonally adjusted; because the basket is hand-collected in a small market, month-to-month readings are more volatile than the national series. Data collection is conducted by trained student analysts. National line: BLS CPI-U, all items, not seasonally adjusted (series CUUR0000SA0), rebased to January 2025 = 100. October 2025 national data was not published during the federal appropriations lapse, and the newest national figure trails Martin by about a month.
Each quarter, EBIL publishes a full write-up of the Martin CPI: category-level detail, the national comparison, methodology, and data-quality notes.
The urban index averaged 107.98 for the quarter, roughly 8% above the January 2025 base and about twice the national rate, as an energy and transportation spike offset declines in housing and apparel.
The urban index averaged 104.38 for the quarter, about 4.4% above the January 2025 base and roughly twice the national rate. A large but thinly-sampled rise in medical care led the quarter, with firmer apparel and transportation and softer food prices a partial offset.
Place the report PDFs in a reports/ folder beside this page (file names: EBIL_Report_Q1_2026.pdf, EBIL_Report_Q1_2026_Summary.pdf, EBIL_Report_Q2_2026.pdf, EBIL_Report_Q2_2026_Summary.pdf), or update the links to match wherever you host them.
Ongoing work
Current research and applied work underway at EBIL, spanning regional economics, agricultural markets, and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
A locally relevant CPI for Martin, TN — primary price collection, basket design, and index methodology adapted from BLS protocols for a small-city context.
Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves across Tennessee counties using IRS Statistics of Income data, tracking inequality trends and correlates with economic structure and policy.
How seniority on key Congressional agricultural committees affects federal spending, program composition, and farm-sector outcomes in represented districts.
Benchmarking startup activity, business-formation rates, access to capital, and support infrastructure across West Tennessee to identify gaps and opportunities.
Economic analysis of Tennessee's emerging wine industry, regional branding potential, and export opportunities, drawing on terroir economics and consumer behavior.
Evaluating Opportunity Zone 2.0 provisions for rural West Tennessee — investment potential, eligible census tracts, and development alignment.
The team
Tom E. Hendrix Chair of Excellence in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship · Associate Professor of Economics · College of Business & Global Affairs, UT Martin.
delmond.org →Student Analysts · EBIL Research Team
EBIL maintains ongoing collaborations with faculty across UT Martin and with regional businesses, municipalities, and research institutions.
Collaborate with us →Get involved
Whether you're a business seeking an economic impact study, a municipality exploring data needs, or a researcher interested in collaboration — we'd like to hear from you.