ABSTRACT
The key terms in this characterization are ‘classical theory’, ‘general interdependence’ and ‘directly observable basic structural relationships’. In this overview of contributions, which can be said to have prepared the ground for input-output analysis proper, ‘classical theory’ will be interpreted to refer to the contributions of the early classical economists, from William Petty to David Ricardo; further elaborated by authors such as Karl Marx, Vladimir K. Dmitriev, Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz and Georg von Charasoff; and culminating in the works of John von Neumann and Piero Sraffa. ‘General interdependence’ will be taken to involve two intimately intertwined problems, which, in a first step of the analysis, may however be treated separately. First, there is the problem of quantity, for which a structure of the levels of operation of processes of production is needed, in order to guarantee the reproduction of the means of production that are used up in the course of production and the satisfaction of some ‘final demand’; that is, the needs and wants of the different groups (or ‘classes’) of society, perhaps making allowance for the growth of the system. Second, there is the problem of price, for which a structure of exchange values of the different products or commodities is needed in order to guarantee a distribution of income between the different classes of income recipients that is consistent with the repetition of the productive process on a given (or increasing) level. It is a characteristic feature of input-output analysis that both the independent and the dependent variables are to be ‘directly observable’, at least in principle. The practical importance of this requirement is obvious, but there is also a theoretical motivation for it: the good of an economic analysis based on magnitudes that cannot be observed, counted and measured is necessarily uncertain.
