Projecting supply and use tables: new variants and fair comparisons

Abstract

We have introduced in this paper new variants of two methods for projecting Supply and Use Tables that are based on a distance minimisation approach (SUT-RAS) and the Leontief model (SUT-EURO). We have also compared them under similar and comparable exogenous information, i.e.: with and without exogenous industry output, and with explicit consideration of taxes less subsidies on products. We have conducted an empirical assessment of all of these methods against a set of annual tables between 2000 and 2005 for Austria, Belgium, Spain and Italy. From the empirical assessment, we obtained three main conclusions: (a) the use of extra information (i.e. industry output) generally improves projected estimates in both methods; (b) whenever industry output is available, the SUT-RAS method should be used and otherwise the SUT-EURO should be used instead; and (c) the total industry output is best estimated by the SUT-EURO method when this is not available.