Linear Aggregation in Input-Output Analysis

Abstract

Recent contributions of Mrs. Balderston and Mr. Whitin (1954) and of M.E. Malinvaud (1954) have stressed the importance of the aggregation problems in input-output analysis. A solution of these problems is clearly desirable; for, although input-output analysis itself was designed in order to show certain basic relations in more detail than the “usual” type of econometric macroanalysis (in terms of regression and structural equations) does, the degree of aggregation is still considerable, even for very large input-output tables.

This article first appeared in Econometrica, 25 (1957), 111–122. Reprinted with the permission of the Econometric Society. The author is indebted to Messrs. Carl F. Christ of the University of Chicago and E. Malinvaud of the I.N.S.E.E., Paris, for their comments, especially for the latter’s contribution to the analysis of homogeneous input structures (section 9).