Some Aspects of the Analytical Use of Descriptive Make and Absorption Tables

Abstract

Descriptive make-use systems form the core of the system of national accounting and provide the direct link to observable facts. They also serve as the empirical basis for estimating the hidden ‘pure’ industry- or commodity-specific input structures. The commodity technology assumption and hybrid solutions are used to illustrate to what extent different steps of data rearrangements might help to improve the results. The empirical results on the basis of Austrian data indicate that-without running into very arbitrary decisions-work on a very disaggregated level with a detailed knowledge of the underlying data can contribute greatly to deriving a well-defined analytical system from the descriptive system.