World Input-Output Database: Construction and Applications

Policy makers and societies at large are facing increasingly pressing trade-offs between socio-economic and environmental developments. Increases in production induce growth in the use of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels, materials, land and water. Furthermore, they generate higher levels of waste and emissions of environmental pollutants. Simultaneously, increasing global integration through international trade and technological developments creates a tension between economic growth and social cohesion. Economic growth and intensified trade seem to be coupled to an increasing inequality between countries as well as between various classes within society. These developments have a global character and any analysis of their causes and effects needs to recognize the dynamic interrelatedness of countries and industries. This project (which started on May 1, 2009 and will run until May 1, 2012) aims to develop databases, accounting frameworks and models to increase our understanding of the above-mentioned phenomena. The core of the database will be a set of harmonized supply and use tables, alongside with data on international trade in goods and services. These two sets of data will be integrated into sets of intercountry input-output tables. Taken together with extensive satellite accounts with environmental and socio-economic indicators, these industry-level data provide the necessary input to several types of models that can be used to evaluate policies aimed at striking a suitable balance between growth, environmental degradation and inequality across the world.

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