AN ALTERNATIVE TO AGGREGATED BASE TABLES IN INPUT-OUTPUT TABLE REGIONALIZATION

Analysts faced with the challenge of constructing a regional input-output table from partial or nonsurvey-based data typically adapt a national input-output table to reflect the regional economic structure. Detailed benchmark input-output tables with more than 500 industry sectors are compiled for years at five-year intervals, but are many years out of date by the time they are released. Annual updates are compiled for intervening years, but detail only 85 industry sectors. Analysts therefore must choose between the currency of the data and its detail in the national table that serves as the reference. This paper presents a table disaggregation and adjustment (TDA) method for combining the information from the detailed benchmark tables with the more current but aggregated data. Empirical tests demonstrate that the TDA method generates base data that analytically outperform the aggregated annual update data.