European Technology, Trade and Income Changes for 1975-85: An Intercountry Input-Output Decomposition

This paper refines, develops and applies input-output (IO) decomposition analysis: by providing it with a unique intercountry perspective, by concentrating on explaining income growth, and by systematically separating the effects of trade structure changes from the effects of technology and preference changes. The resulting matrix formula distinguishes six components and is applied to a set of European Community (EC) intercountry IO tables for 1975 and 1985 with 25 sectors and eight EC countries. Because GDP growth is analyzed in nominal terms, macro-economic demand growth is found to be the most important component. The other five components relate to the effects of coefficient changes. Their sizes are smaller, but significant and widely different between sectors and countries, which shows that there is clear potential for effective sector policies.