An Efficient Approach to the Estimation of Regional Input—Output Multipliers

Analysts constructing, updating, and/or applying regional input-output tables normally have limited budget resources. Once a prototype table has been produced, it is inefficient to spread these resources evenly over all the cells in order to obtain superior or updated estimates; primary attention should be given to the key sections of the table. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to rank the technical coefficients in order of the importance that errors in these coefficients have on the multipliers. It is then demonstrated how this ranking can be used as an input to an optimization model in order that multiplier accuracy is maximized subject to limited budget resources.