Decomposition of Structural Change into Technology and Price Components: Turkey, 1973–85

The purpose of this paper is to report on an approach to the analysis of intertemporal change in input–output tables in terms of the components of this change with time. We define two alternative forms of decomposition: additive and multiplica tive. The multiplicative form is found to have advantages over the additive form: it is not affected by the choice of price-adjusting mechanism and it enables us to define summary measures in the line of, for example, direct backward linkages. We apply the methodo logy to input–output tables for Turkey for 1973 and 1985, and compute the components of total change for 1973–85. We illustrate that, in economies where price changes across industries vary to a great extent, studying structural change first requires the removal of the relative price effects. Otherwise, misleading conclusions regarding the real or tech nological change are very likely.