The Inforum Approach to Interindustry Modeling

Inforum models are described as internationally-linkable, dynamic, interindustry models which imitate as closely as possible the way the economy behaves. They models are contrasted with classical input–output models, pure econometric models, and CGE models. Their common elements are set out and the common software described. The rest of this issue of this Journal is introduced.     

Assessing Aggregate Structural Change

The aim of this paper is to investigate the evolution of Italian aggregate structural change over the years 1965–85. We use annual input–output (IO) tables in current and constant prices to derive an aggregate index of structural change. We adopt several techniques for such an explorative analysis. First, we borrow from qualitative matrix analysis and graph theory some basic concepts to assess direct and indirect links among sectors, and interrelatedness measures are derived in a straightforward way. However, qualitative analysis of indirect links may be flawed, since it can establish a path that is quantitatively negligible. Then, we turn our attention to a non-standard quantitative index derived from structural path analysis, expressed by a simple function of the input matrix determinant. Since empirical findings indicate a structural break in 1975, we derive another measure of technical change: the dominant eigenvalue. Such an index has several interesting properties but no clear relationship to the circularity process implicit in the Leontief model. Results for constant- and actual-price IO tables are discussed and compared with main macro-economic variables over the sample. Empirical findings indicate a relationship between investment, variability in final demand and aggregate structural change.     

Interindustry Analysis with Social Accounting Methods

This paper evaluates the role of income-expenditure linkages in interindustry analysis. Using matrix decomposition methods and a social accounting matrix of the USA, it is shown that multiplier estimates which omit such linkages are not reliable measures of the effects of exogenous shocks upon industrial output and income. The paper further applies the decomposition method to study relative income determination between sectors, i.e. how the composition of national product changes in response to exogenous shocks.     

Interindustry Technology Flows and Productivity in Finnish Manufacturing

The paper examines the importance of interindustry technology flows in finnish manufacturing in the 1980s and early 1990s. An attempt is made to distinguish between embodied technology flows and spillovers, so clarifying the spillover concept.Embodied technology covers intermediate goods and capital equipment. The embodied technology data that have been used are partly based on input—output analysis, while the spillover estimates presented are based on measures of technological distance based on the industry-specific distributions of R&D expenditures. Econometric analysis of the effects of the various technology inputs on total factor productivity implies that technology embodied in foreign machinery, domestic spillovers and, to some extent, the firms' own R&D have been the most important technology sources on average.     

Interindustry Linkages: Virtuous and Vicious?

Although overall linkages are steadily increasing in growth processes, em-pirical data supply strong evidence of large intercountry and intertemporal fluctuations of the domestic-to-overall linkages ratio. This paper tries to explain this phenomenon by modelling a producers' behaviour which appears more realistic than that usually assumed in interindustry or computable general equilibrium models. The main novelty of the results is that the same causes that generate interindustry multipliers can also ‘trap’ domestic linkages into reinforcing (‘virtuous’) or weakening (‘vicious’) circles, depending on whether the price competitiveness of domestic activities is above or below a threshold related to the non-price competitiveness of those activities. These results can help to explain the fluctuations of domestic linkages with respect to overall linkages by spatial and temporal shifts of the threshold between the vicious and the virtuous ‘areas’. Moreover, they emphasize the importance of supply policies-mainly R&D policies—because of their ‘pushing down’ effect on this threshold.     

Structural Change for Economic Growth

As soon as the post-war era of rapid economic growth had come to an end in the early 1970s, the intellectural fashion being to swing towards a renewed appreciation of economic growth and the 'classical' factors of growth saving hard work, enterprise, innovation and a legal framework which secures the property rights to the rewards of material progress and facilitates flexible adjustment by a competitives system. Professor Wolfgang Kasper of the University of New South Wales in Australia argues that the major challenge for societies in West and East, North and South alike is now to make the supply side of the economy more elastic and responsive to new opparatunities and circumstances.     

Inefficiency Spillovers in Five OECD Countries: An Interindustry Analysis

Empirical studies have widely demonstrated that real-world activities are rarely on their production frontier. Hence, an obvious concern arises towards the detection of inefficiencies affecting sectoral performances. The current literature and practice have widely explored the sources of inefficiency internal to decision-making units. This paper argues that a major role is played by external effects due to inefficiency spillovers propagating through interindustry transactions. In order to take this mechanism into account, the paper suggests assessing sectoral performances by a system approach that makes use of shadow prices of intermediate inputs. Our approach is able to disentangle sectoral inefficiencies into internal sectoral inefficiencies and inefficiencies imported from other sectors. The latter component is due to inefficiency spillovers that appear to be empirically relevant in all sectors of five OECD countries.     

The Performance of Structural Change Tests

This paper provides analytical and Monte Carlo studies of the effect of different types of structural change (residual variance, process mean and process persistence) on the performance of the Chow/Wald stability test. We focus on the first-order autoregressive model, which has been used to estimate and assess changes in inflation persistence. Our results show that the autoregressive model is a difficult subject for the Chow test.     

Issues in Assessing the Effect of Interindustry R&D Spillovers

This paper aims to clarify three issues concerning the weighting methodol ogy generally used to evaluate interindustry R&D spillovers. These issues concern the likely nature of the spillovers estimated through different types of supporting matrices; the similarity between input–output (IO), technology flows and technological proximity matrices; and the relevance of the assumption that a single matrix can be used for different countries. Data analyses of weighting components show that technology flows matrices are in an intermediate position between IO matrices and technological proximity matrices, but closer to the former. The various IO matrices, as well as the three technological proximity matrices, are very similar to each other. The panel data estimates of the effect of different types of interindustry R&D spillovers on industrial productivity growth in the G7 countries reject the hypotheses that a technology flows matrix can be approximated by an IO matrix and that a single IO matrix can be usedfor different countries. By transitivity, the procedure that comprises using a single technology flow for several countries is not reliable. The international comparison shows that each country benefits from different types of R&D externality. In Japan and, to a lesser extent, in the US, the rate of return to direct R&D is very high and is likely to compensate for relatively weak interindustry R&D spillover effects. In the five other industrialized countries, the reverse observation is true: strong social rates of return to R&D counterbal ance the poor performances of direct R&D.     

二元经济的结构转变与增长分析

近来国外的许多研究利用现代经济增长理论的分析框架,从理论上探讨了结构转变对经济增长的重要性。但相关模型设定不尽符合我国二元经济的现实。本文结合我国实际、通过拓展相关理论模型,构建包含两个代表性个体、考虑劳动力转移成本和政府投入的二元经济增长模型,从理论上探讨我国结构转变与经济增长的关系,指出了政府投入对促进结构转变、加快经济增长的关键作用。进一步,本文还利用该模型解释了经济增长过程中的区域差距和城乡差距的变动,并探讨缩减经济差距的相关对策。     

市场化进程中的税制结构变迁

本文研究了在市场化进程的不同阶段税制结构与经济增长和福利改善之间的关系。理论研究表明,以商品税为主的税制结构促进了鞍点路径上的经济增长和福利改善,并加速了市场化进程。随着市场化进程的不断推进,当前税制结构对于经济增长和福利改善的正向影响程度逐渐降低,而商品税税率的适度下调可以实现鞍点路径上福利水平最大化。与之相对,商品税占比过高或过低的税制结构,都会出现福利水平的相对损失。实证结果也显示,我国现行税制结构中生产性间接税可以促进经济增长和社会福利的改善,并且市场化程度对这一影响具有显著的调节效应。因此,随着中国经济发展进入“新常态”,政府应进一步简政放权,减少对市场的直接干预,适度调整税制结构,降低间接税比重,实现经济持续增长和福利不断改善。     

探索农村食品消费结构的转变规律——一个嵌入时间路径的LA/AIDS模型的应用

本文在总结国内外文献的基础上,利用一个嵌入时间路径的LA/AIDS模型,探索了农村居民食品消费结构的转变规律。结果显示,农村居民食品的消费结构发生了渐进式转变,其转变期为1984～1987年。从需求弹性值变化来看,粮食一直是必需品,其弹性值变化不大,消费量逐年下降;肉类从奢侈品转变为必需品,发生了本质的变化,其消费量逐年上升;水产品仍是富于弹性的奢侈品,但其弹性值逐渐下降,并趋于必需品。     

Imputed Interindustry Technology Flows - A Comparative SMFA Analysis

This paper shows how the pattern of an interindustry R&D flow system can be detected using a Subsystem-MFA (SMFA). The standard subsystem analysis shows the innovation spillovers of the relevant innovative sectors of a country, which are then turned into graphical form so that the sector clustering into this system can be displayed like a 'molecule' of sectors. The analysis uses the recently published input-output tables of the OECD for Germany, Japan and the United States for the beginning, the middle and the end of the 1980s. The analysis uses R&D-expenditures as an innovation-indicatorvector, published also by the OECD. The results show that there are specific patterns of interindustry imputed R&D flows that differ to some extent between the given countries. These differences can be interpreted as being due to the specific economic history of these countries.     

Structural Change in Apartheid-era South Africa: 1975-93

This paper examines the sources of structural changes in output growth of South Africa's economy over 1975-93 using a decomposition method within the inputoutput (IO) framework for analysing output changes from a demand side perspective. It decomposes output growth into private consumption, government consumption, investment and export components and also measures the impact of import substitution and changes in intermediate input use (as indicated by changes in IO coefficients). It is found that, before 1981, overall output growth was multi-components driven with all the above components contributing positively to economic growth. However, the collapse of investment demand is by far the single largest factor contributing to the economic stagnation that categorizes the post-1981 period.     

Endogenous Growth and Structural Change in a Dynamic Input-Output Model

This paper introduces a simple dynamic input-output model, in which some of the most important properties of recent endogenous growth theory are included: innovation, knowledge spillovers, constant returns to scale at the macro level, and full employment. The wish to keep the hybrid model as tractable as possible (despite the industry detail) caused some substantial simplifications: contrary to most endogenous growth models, the model lacks an explicit microeconomic foundation and disregards any opportunity for instantaneous substitution. After the constituent equations are presented, the long-run behavior of the model is studied by a number of computer simulations for a hypothetical economy. The paper concludes with some illustrations of the potential practical power of future interindustry endogenous growth models in integrating issues like technology, investment, trade and education.     

An Analysis of Structural Change in China using Biproportional Methods

Traditional IO techniques have been used and applied in detail to the case of the Chinese economy with a view to describing and analysing the gradual, albeit radical, transformation of the Chinese industrial fabric since the beginning of the economic reforms. Using a Biproportional Filter, our study has a threefold objective: to measure and analyse structural change that has taken place in the Chinese manufacturing sector since 1985; to highlight those industries that have been most responsible for the change; and to explain the reasons for these changes.     

服务业各行业生产率变迁与内部结构异质性

运用超越对数生产函数的随机前沿模型测度1990年以来中国服务业各细分行业生产率及技术状况,采用DFA分析中国服务业内部结构演化及各行业发展异质性。研究表明,技术进步是目前推动我国服务业向集约化经济发展的主导力量,技术效率的改进是主导TFP变化的核心因素;生产性服务业技术进步对产值贡献度较大,并且其技术效率要高于生活性服务业;服务业内部结构演化存在明显异质性,新型生产、生活性服务业随着经济发展水平的提高形成和不断发展,消费资料型服务发展逐渐壮大。     

Estimating International Interindustry Linkages: Non-survey Simulations of the Asian-Pacific Economy

This paper evaluates a recently published semi-survey international input–output table for nine East-Asian countries and the USA with four non-survey estimation alternatives. A new generalized RAS procedure is used with stepwise increasing information from both import and export statistics as optimisation constraints on the four non-survey tables. The results show that the estimated table improves when increasing information from both sources is used, despite the well known inconsistencies between import and export data in trade statistics. It is concluded that the new procedure can be useful as a critical analysis of newly published (semi-)survey international tables and/or as an early updating tool during the construction process.     

Tests for Stationarity in Series with Endogenously Determined Structural Change*

We consider tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity against a unit root alternative, when the series is subject to structural change at an unknown point in time. Three extant tests are reviewed which allow for an endogenously determined instantaneous structural break, and a related fourth procedure is introduced. We further propose tests which permit the structural change to be gradual rather than instantaneous, allowing the null hypothesis to be stationarity about a smooth transition in linear trend. The size and power properties of the tests are investigated, and the tests are applied to four economic time series.     

Structural Change and Labor Requirement of the Japanese Economy

This paper extends the framework of input–output decomposition analysis into a model which decomposes changes in the labor requirement of an economy into effects of occupational substitution, changes in labor productivity and changes in material inputs. By application of this model to the Japanese experience it was found that the most important characteristic of the evolution of the Japanese labor force in the period 1975–85 was the replacement of blue collar workers by highly skilled professionals and technicians. Both technical change and changes in the structure of final demand fostered the increasing demand for professionals and technicians. As the mix of employment shifted towards high knowledge level occupations, Japan's labor productivity increased sharply.