Background Notes and Methodology - Supply and Use and Input-Output tables 2005
The supply and use and symmetric input-output tables give a detailed picture of the transactions of all goods and
services by industries and final consumers in the Irish economy in a single year. They serve as an integrated framework
for all production statistics and are used as a statistical tool to compile and reconcile independent estimates of National
Accounts aggregates.
The supply and use framework shows the components of gross value added (GVA) by industry as well as imports,
exports and taxes and subsidies on products. The GVA in the use table measures the contribution to GDP made by each
particular industry branch.
1. Background to the Tables
The main aggregates in the supply and use tables (value added, final consumption, imports and exports) are consistent
with the estimates shown in the publication National Income and Expenditure 2007 (NIE07). However, the starting point
of the tables is the CSO business surveys (e.g. Census of Industrial Production, the Prodcom Inquiry and Annual Service
Inquiry). Considerable use is also made of published reports of government departments, semi-state bodies and
financial institutions. Producing supply and use and input-output tables thus requires the examination of consistency
and coherency of data and aggregates from national accounts, external trade statistics, balance of international
payments results and data provided by the business surveys.
In general, data on purchases is more difficult to assemble than data on turnover. The manufacturing inputs in this 2005
publication however have been assembled from data gathered by the Census of Industrial Production (CIP) Inputs
Survey of 2005. This is a five-yearly survey of manufacturing industry which was conducted as an integral part of the
2005 CIP. In the case of non-manufacturing industry, estimates were made based on data from the Annual Services
Inquiry and on other limited information.
A degree of balancing is necessary in the construction of any supply and use tables to fit the national accounts data with
data from other surveys. Consequently allowances must be made for a lack of absolute accuracy in the figures in this
report. They are overall estimates and not absolute definitive data.
The supply and use and input-output tables display details of the economy in terms of 53 industry groups and 53
product groups. The sectoral classification used is the two-digit level of the NACE Rev 1 referred to as the A60 coding of
industry activities. The product classification used is the sixty product grouping referred to as the P60. The A60 and P60
classifications are effectively the same. The classification is reproduced in Appendix B. The underlying definitions used
are those of the European System of Accounts 1995 (ESA95). The methodology used is described in the Eurostat Manual
of Supply, Use and Input-Output Tables (see http://bookshop.europa.eu).
2. Overview of the Tables
There are five transactions tables in the publication:
Table 1
Supply Table at basic prices (product by industry)
Table 2
Use Table at purchasers’ prices (product by industry)
Table 3
Use Table for imports at basic (c.i.f.) prices (product by industry)
Table 4
Symmetric Input-Output Table of domestic product flows (product by product)
Table 5
The Leontief inverse of domestic flows with multipliers for other inputs (product by product)
Table 1 - Supply Table
This table provides estimates of the supply of goods and services (products) by domestic industries as well as imports of
goods and services. The supply of products is presented in the rows while the columns show the industry branches that
produce these goods and services. Each industry is classified according to whichever product accounts for the largest
part of its output. Its principal production, shown on the diagonal elements of the supply table, is therefore larger than
its secondary production shown on the off-diagonal elements. A summary of the 2005 supply table is shown below.
2005 Supply Table at basic prices €m
industries
Ag, for, Manufacturing Construction Distribution, Business
fish
comm
products
(1-5)
(10-41)
(45)
Ag, for, fish
7,200
-
-
Manufacturing
-
Construction
-
106,752
2
38,440
31
3,235
-
Business services
62
2,518
322
Output
70
2
7,364
112,509
-
-
Distribution, comm.
Other services
(50-64)
87
-
74
Total
Domestic
Imports
c.i.f.
Margins
Taxes
less
subsidies
Total supply
(purchasers'
prices)
(75-95)
32
7,200
1,061
655
-1,085
7,832
106,945
56,072
18,761
11,032
192,810
3,632
42,083
-
-
38,442
48,751
562
-
52,579
12,268 -19,416
1,923
47,354
736
81,367
295
85,301
43,038
-
3,287
131,626
38,762
(65-74)
Other
services
92
49,666
82,003
9
-
40,730
40,893
369
-
188
41,451
41,057
331,360
112,819
-
18,977
463,156
Treatment of the motor trade, retail and wholesale
The outputs of the distribution sector are defined in a special way for national accounts purposes and may not be as
expected. The motor trade, retail and wholesale activities are regarded as producing a service which is measured as the
price at which their products are sold minus the purchase price of these products (which they purchased for direct
resale). This is referred to as the gross margin. Thus the retail supermarket is not regarded as providing food or drink
nor is the drapery outlet regarded as providing clothes. In the supply and use framework, the food and clothes are the
products of their respective industries or are imported and retailers are regarded as providing a sales service (see the
distribution rows 50 – 52 of the supply table).
The gross margin is also used to measure the output of distribution activity by firms that are mainly involved in another
activity such as manufacturing.
Valuation
The values of the domestically produced products in the supply table are shown initially at basic prices while they are
transformed to purchasers’ prices in the final columns. Imports are shown at c.i.f. (carriage, insurance and freight
inclusive) prices as in the published merchandise trade statistics.
The basic price is the price receivable by the producer for a unit of a good or service produced, minus any tax payable as
a consequence of its production or sale (i.e. taxes on products), plus any subsidy receivable on that unit as a
consequence of its production or sale (i.e. subsidies on products). Thus the basic price excludes the well-known product
taxes such as vat, excise duties, import duties etc. In theory, the basic price excludes any transport charges invoiced
separately by the producer but includes any transport charges charged on the same invoice. It does not include any
trade margin. The basic price measures the amount retained by the producer and is therefore the price most relevant
for the producer’s decision making.
The purchaser’s price is the price the purchaser actually pays for the product including any taxes less subsidies on the
product (but excluding deductible taxes). The conversion from basic prices to purchasers’ prices involves distributing the
trade margins of retailers and wholesalers among the products on which they are charged. The margin in the motor
trade and domestic wholesale and retail trades appears as negative values in rows 50 to 52 of the trade margin column
of the supply table as these margins are distributed in the same column among the products on which they fall.
Table 2 - Use Table at purchasers’ prices
This table shows the use of products by domestic industry and by the final demand sectors, i.e. consumption by
households, government, non-profit organisations serving households (NPISH), capital formation (GFCF) and export. As
in the previous table, industries are shown in the columns and products in the rows. Thus the columns of figures for
industries 1 - 95 show the goods and services used by each industry for the purposes of achieving its output. The
purchases in these columns relate to intermediate consumption only. The capital purchases are shown separately but a
breakdown by industry is not provided. All the purchases of households in their private (non-business) capacity as
consumers are included under household consumption with the exception of the purchase of dwellings, which is
included with capital formation. Additional information for each industry is shown at the end of the industry columns,
where estimates of the components of the gross value added by each industry are supplied. These are in the form of
compensation of employees (COE), non-product (i.e. overhead) taxes and subsidies, net operating surplus (or profits)
and consumption of capital (or depreciation). The latter two items, when combined, are referred to as gross operating
surplus (GOS). The sum of these rows is referred to as the gross value added of the industry and is equal to the output
of the industry minus its intermediate consumption costs.
2005 Use Table in purchasers' prices €m
industries
Ag, for, Manufacturing Construction Distribution, Business Other
fish
comm.
services
products
Ag, for, fish
(1-5)
1,479
(10-41)
3,934
Manufacturing
2,394
Construction
(45)
Total inter- Consumption
industry
and GFCF
Exports
Total uses
74
(50-64)
251
(65-74)
6
(75-95)
67
5,810
1,343
678
7,832
32,732
10,492
7,965
2,429
4,713
60,724
40,594
91,492
192,810
42,083
79
193
10,078
165
646
650
11,811
30,272
-
Distribution, comm.
131
8,311
358
7,917
4,201
1,398
22,316
15,403
9,634
47,354
Business services
376
31,653
3,096
6,311
34,376
4,484
80,296
21,244
30,086
131,626
Other services
174
490
467
688
728
4,665
7,212
33,762
477
41,451
4,632
77,312
24,565
23,296
42,387
15,977
188,169
142,619
132,368
463,156
COE
531
10,975
9,384
13,216
10,969
20,889
65,963
GOS
3,489
23,769
4,788
12,461
28,569
4,044
77,120
Taxes less subsidies
-1,288
452
25
694
78
147
108
value added
2,732
7,364
35,197
112,509
14,196
38,762
26,371
49,666
39,616
82,003
25,080
41,057
143,191
331,360
Total
Output
Valuation
The purchases of the products in the use table are valued at purchasers’ prices, which have already been explained in
the note on the supply table above. There is no distinction in this table between imported and home produced
products. The gross value added of the industries shown in the second last row, being equal to the output of the
industries valued at basic prices minus their intermediate consumption at purchasers’ prices is regarded as being valued
at basic prices.
Balancing the Supply Table with the Use Table
The total supply of each product in the last column of the supply table is equal to the total use of the product in the last
column of the use table. Similarly, the total output of each industry in the last row of the supply table is equal to the
sum of the intermediate consumption and value added of that industry, which is the last row of the use table.
Table 3 – Use Table for imports at basic prices
This table is similar to the main part of Table 2 above but is confined to imports. It shows the use by the industries of
imported goods and services for their day to day activities. It also shows the use by the elements of final demand
sectors (e.g. household consumption, capital investment etc.) of imported goods and services. There is a greater degree
of estimation in this table than in the others as there is a lack of survey data on the use of imports. In many cases the
use of imports of a particular commodity by an industry group or final demand sector had to be estimated based on the
percentage which the total imports of the product in question formed of the total supply of the product in the State.
Table 4 - Symmetric Input-Output Table for domestic output at basic prices
This table is derived from the preceding three tables. The transformation of the supply and use tables to input-output
table is based on the commodity technology assumption.1 The input-output table forms the basis of Table 5 which
contains the Leontief inverse coefficients which are required by users of input-output techniques to assess the
implications of changes in demand on the various sectors of the economy. It purports to show the use made of
domestically produced products in the manufacture or provision of other products. A summary of the input-output
table is shown below.
2005 Symmetric Input-Output Table of domestic product flows €m
products
Ag, for, Manufacturing Construction Distribution, Business
fish
comm
products
Ag, for, fish
Manufacturing
Construction
(1-5)
1,424
(10-41)
4,117
820
(45)
Other
services
Interindustry
Consumption
and GFCF
Exports
Total outputs
63
(50-64)
249
(65-74)
9
(75-95)
64
5,925
597
678
7,200
7,411
4,078
2,463
910
1,184
16,866
5,122
84,957
106,945
77
184
10,062
166
579
612
11,679
26,762
-
38,442
Distribution, communication
498
4,186
1,516
6,848
3,229
1,740
18,017
23,253
11,309
52,579
Business services
348
5,118
2,977
5,114
17,214
4,002
34,774
20,441
30,086
85,301
Other services
169
443
462
683
782
4,490
7,028
33,388
477
40,893
Intermediate consumption
3,337
21,459
19,158
15,522
22,722
12,091
94,290
109,562
127,508
331,360
Imports
1,316
53,247
4,978
6,923
20,184
2,781
89,428
18,532
4,860
112,819
-94
651
305
1,091
1,530
969
4,451
14,526
-
4,559
462
75,357
9,589
24,440
9,380
23,536
14,196
44,436
11,458
15,841
20,878
188,169
65,963
142,619
77,120
Product taxes less subsidies
Total at purchasers' prices
COE
GOS
3,466
21,598
4,597
14,089
29,342
4,027
-1,287
402
24
757
65
147
108
Value added
2,641
31,589
14,001
29,043
40,865
25,052
143,191
Total inputs (= total outputs)
7,200
106,945
38,442
52,579
85,301
40,893
331,360
Other taxes less subsidies
1
132,368
18,977
463,156
See Handbook of Input-Output Table Compilation and Analysis, United Nations Publication, Sales No. E99XVII.9, New
York, 1999
The structure of the input-output table (I-O table) is similar to the structure of the use table but differs in the following
ways:

The I-O table is product-by-product and thus shows the use of products in the production of other products.

Purchases are valued at basic prices. (The basic price is the price received by the producer for a good or service
produced minus any tax payable as a consequence of its production plus any subsidy received as a
consequence of its production. It excludes any trade margin. It is therefore the price retained by the producer.)

The I-O table is a domestic input-output table and thus shows the use made of domestically produced products
in the production of other products. Information on the imports of goods and services for further production
and for final consumption is provided in the imports row followed by a row of product taxes less subsidies.
Adding the product taxes less subsidies to the values at basic prices converts the intermediate consumption to
purchasers’ prices.

The input-output table is symmetric. The sum of the entries in any row is equal to the sum of the entries in the
corresponding column. This is because total output of a product, shown at the end of a row, can be analysed
into various costs going into its production, shown down the column. These column sums and row sums are
equal to the total domestic supply column of Table 1.
Table 5 – The Leontief inverse of domestic flows with multipliers for other inputs
If there is an increase in final demand for a particular product, we can assume that there will be an increase in the
output of that product but also an increase in demand for other products (i.e. the intermediate consumption needed for
the production of that product) and so on down the supply chain. Table 5 attempts to measure the complete direct and
indirect impacts on the economy resulting from the increase in demand for domestic output of a given product. The
Leontief inverse is derived from the input-output table.
The upper portion of Table 5 in the publication for 2005 can be interpreted as follows, using products of agriculture,
forestry and fishing as an example.
Each €1 of final demand for domestic output of products of agriculture, forestry and fishing requires:
€1.277 output of domestically produced agriculture, forestry and fishing;
€0.001 output of domestically produced coal, peat and petroleum;
€0.006 output of domestically produced mining and quarrying products;
€0.100 output of domestically produced food and beverage products; etc.
The column sums shown in the row after product 95 are called output multipliers. These show how much direct and
indirect output is required, across all domestic products per €1 final demand for the products named at the top of the
column. But considerable duplication of output is included in this approach. For example, if an increase in the final
demand of product A by €1, requires an increase of 90% of this amount of output of product B, then output of both
products has been increased by €1.9. Gross outputs rather than net value added of products are combined in this table
to give the column aggregates thereby giving rise to duplication of output. The duplication arises because product B is
an ingredient in product A and its cost is absorbed in the final value of A, rather than added to the final value of A.
The lower portion of Table 5 shows the direct plus indirect effect on other inputs per €1 final demand. In each column
the sum of the coefficients of imports, taxes less subsidies, compensation of employees, consumption of fixed capital
and net operating surplus add to 1. They show, after all the cycles of production are completed, how the additional unit
of final demand was spread over these categories. There is no duplication in these coefficients.
Within the 53 product groups, seven have import multipliers of value 0.15 or less and all of these come from the
services sector. This implies that for €1 extra demand of home produced products from these product groups, less than
15% is spent indirectly on imports. The remainder, more than 85% of the €1, remains within the economy. The product
groups with the lowest import multipliers include:
0.086 for Wholesale trade
0.086 for Real estate services
0.087 for Education
(NACE 51)
(NACE 70)
(NACE 80)
Conversely, the highest import multipliers include the following:
0.880 for Office machinery and computers
0.681 for Printed matter and recorded media
0.642 for Electrical machinery and apparatus n.e.c.
0.584 for Chemical products and man-made fibres
0.559 for Insurance and pension services.
(NACE 30)
(NACE 22)
(NACE 31)
(NACE 24)
(NACE 66)
Of an extra €1 demand for these products, there is an import content of at least 50%. One may observe that almost all
those listed are for products of manufacturing industries. These industries are dominated in Ireland by large
multinational enterprises. The re-insurance element of the insurance industry largely explains its high import content.
The domestic constituents of final demand are compensation of employees; net operating surplus; consumption of
fixed capital; and taxes less subsidies. Multipliers for each of these are found in the last rows of the Leontief table.
These multipliers may be used for comparisons between branches. But care should be taken in their interpretation. For
example, they take no account of outflows of profits and dividends from each branch and are thus related more to gross
domestic product than to gross national product. They describe the effects of marginal increases in final demand and
can not strictly be applied to large changes. They do, however, recognise the interdependence of the various sectors of
the economy and for this reason can be a useful tool in the area of impact analysis.
3. Consistency with other CSO Publications
Reconciliation with the National Accounts
In these tables the final demand aggregates and the components of value added are taken from the national accounts
which provide control totals. This concordance is with the 2005 estimates as published in National Income and
Expenditure 2007 (NIE07). The table below shows the aggregate figures in the 2005 supply and use tables (SUT) and
input-output table (I-O) that agree with figures from NIE07.
Consistency of 2005 Supply and Use Tables with NIE07
Aggrega te
Imports of goods and services
Product taxes
Product subsidies
Household, NPISH and Government expenditure
Gross fixed capital formation
Changes in inventories
Exports of goods and services
Value added at basic prices
Compensation of employees
Net Operating surplus
Consumption of fixed capital
Other taxes on production
Other subsidies on production
€m
112,819
20,655
-1,678
98,683
43,113
824
132,368
143,191
65,963
60,155
16,965
1,550
-1,442
I-O a nd SUT
Suppl y a nd I-O ta bl e
Suppl y ta bl e
Suppl y ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e a nd I-O ta bl e
Us e ta bl e
Us e ta bl e
NIE 07
i tem 84
i tem 33
i tem 34
i tems 79 & 80
i tem 81
i tems 82 & 85
i tem 83
i tem 32
i tems 2, 3, 9 & 10
i tems 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 & 12
i tem 28
i tem30
i tem31
Comparison with other CSO sources
Although the supply and use tables are consistent with national accounts data published in NIE07 and thereby
consistent with the balance of payments data compiled by the CSO, it is not possible to achieve full agreement with all
CSO publications. The exercise of compiling supply and use tables helps to identify discrepancies that exist within
different data sources. It is hoped that some of these discrepancies will be removed over time.
There are four main reasons for differences that occur between the aggregates presented in the supply and use tables
and the aggregates presented in other publications, e.g. the Census of Industrial Production (CIP) and Annual Services
Inquiry (ASI). Some examples of these are set out here.
Terminology
For the most part, the underlying definitions are consistent throughout CSO publications, but certain differences do
arise. For example, the output in the supply table is inclusive of freight and of the margin gained on goods resold
without further processing. These two items are not part of the term ‘gross output’ in Table 1 of the CIP. Also the term
‘compensation of employees’ in national accounts includes the employer’s contribution to social insurance and other
labour costs, which are not included in the wages and salaries variable in CIP and ASI.
Accounting practices
Some international sales by Irish companies are included in the CIP gross turnover but are treated on a net basis (i.e.
sales less purchases) in the balance of payments. Supply and use adjusts the CIP data and includes the net amount as an
export of a service. Conversely, there are companies manufacturing on a fee basis whose transactions may be recorded
gross in the international trade statistics. Here, either the outputs and inputs have to be adjusted so that the margin
equates to the fee or else the merchandise trade is adjusted to convert the goods imported and exported to a fee based
service for use in the balance of payments. In the case of telecommunications, some of the turnover in the ASI arises
from importing and exporting telecommunications services, whereas balance of payments uses a net treatment. Supply
and use adopts the balance of payments practice in these situations.
Classifications
Output by product may be classified differently in the Prodcom Inquiry to the export statistics. This difficulty is
corrected by realigning at a product level the production with the exports or vice versa. Sometimes the classifications in
the two systems are quite unrelated. For example, what appears in one classification as a chemical may be classified as
food and beverages in another system.
Conflicts in classification also occur at the overall activity level of companies. The company’s NACE code in the national
accounts and balance of payments may differ from the NACE code used by CIP or ASI. Usually the classification used in
the CIP or ASI is adopted in the supply and use tables. It can also happen that the mismatch highlights a problem that is
resolved by transferring the company within the CIP or ASI.
Conflicting data
The supply and use tables are compiled using data from different sources. It is therefore not surprising that there are
occasional instances of contradictory and conflicting information. Some examples are: the value of production by a
company, measured in the CIP, may be less than their exports, measured by the international merchandise trade
statistics; the value added of a company, measured by national accounts from administrative sources, may not concur
with the same variable derived in the CIP or the ASI; compensation of employees calculated in national accounts based
on employment figures can conflict with the wages and salaries figures in the CIP and ASI, which are assembled from
company data. Reconciliation of these types of problem can result in differences between the variable presented in the
supply and use tables and the same variable in the CIP or ASI.