By estimating such impacts as changes in employment and income, economic impact assessments (EIAs) help fisheries managers, elected officials, administrators, and interest groups describe the effects of policy and investment decisions. Such assessments also reveal the distribution of economic effects across regional sectors. Compared to benefit-cost analyses, EIAs are less appropriate for measuring social benefits and require somewhat different data. Among the various EIA techniques, the hybrid data input-output model can satisfy the widest range of fisheries information needs with reasonable cost and acceptable levels of accuracy, except perhaps when long-range forecasts are required. Multipliers, a deceptively simple EIA result, are prone to misinterpretation and misuse primarily when analysts fail to state the type of multipliers calculated, the context in which they were derived, and how they should be used to help guide policy and investment decisions. In recreational fisheries, typical “ratio” multipliers should not be applied to consumer spending to compute a total impact figure; instead, a Keynesian relationship, which expresses additional impacts per unit of consumer spending, should be applied. Regardless of the EIA procedure or multiplier type employed, the limiting factor in the natural resources field is quality data on consumer spending and industrial output.