input-output analysis

Economic analysis developed by Wassily Leontief, in which the interdependence of an economy's various productive sectors is observed by viewing the product of each industry both as a commodity for consumption and as a factor in the production of itself and other goods. For example, input-output analysis will break down a nation's total production of trucks, showing that some trucks are used in the production of more trucks, some in farming, some in the production of houses, and so on. An input-output analysis is usually summarized in a gridlike table showing what various industries buy from and sell to one another.

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