ABSTRACT
An input–output table represents the economy to be studied in terms of aggregated industrial or commodity groups or sectors. The transactions table provides a concise, descriptive snapshot of a particular economy at a point in time. A hypothetical and much-simplified transactions table for a 3-sector economy. It is also a disaggregated and consistent accounting system for an economy. Once the transactions table has been compiled, simple mathematical procedures can be applied to derive output, income and employment multipliers for each sector in the economy. The authors, after a long period of examination in detail of several regional economies, feel that input–output analysis could be developed more fruitfully and more consistently if more research attention was devoted to the nature and 'shape' of transactions tables, before proceeding to analytical work. It is possible to use input–output tables and multipliers to measure the result in terms of output, income and employment, of any change in the local economy due to an 'impacting agent'.
