A BIPROPORTIONAL FILTER TO COMPARE TECHNICAL AND ALLOCATION COEFFICIENT VARIATIONS

In input-output analysis there are two alternate possibilities between Leontief's mechanism (fixed technical coefficients) and Ghosh's mecha nism (fixed allocation coefficients). Testing the long-term consistenc y of these mechanisms entails comparing input-output matrices over tim e. This paper challenges the value of proportional filters (separate c omparisons of column and row coefficients) and introduces the bipropor tional filter that allows simultaneous comparison of column and rows. An application is proposed using French input-output tables for 1980 a nd 1993. The stability of column coefficients cannot be taken for gran ted and, generally, for any sector, both row and column coefficients a re found to change simultaneously.