5209.0.55.001 - Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables - Electronic Publication, 2004-05 Final  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 19/11/2008   
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Alternative view of I-O tables

A different view of the 2004-05 Input Output Tables (Cat 5209.0.55.001) has been produced to support the needs of users who apply the data in large and sophisticated models. This view has two variations from the main view of the tables.

The first variation relates to the precision of the main tables.

The published Input-Output spreadsheets contain data rounded to the nearest 1 million dollars. This rounding has been applied because we do not have confidence in the statistical accuracy of the estimated values for cells less than $500,000. In the compilation of input-output tables various modelling techniques are used to populate the tables because directly collected information is not available for every cell in the input-output tables. As a consequence of these modelling techniques very small values may be estimated in certain cells, amounting to spurious precision. However, some users of input-output data require more decimal places for technical reasons so values to three decimal places are provided.

The second variation relates to the treatment of imports data. It offsets the treatment of freight and insurance services provided on imports by residents. These are already part of domestic output and should not be treated as imports, therefore in the main tables imports of freight and insurance services are adjusted downwards at an aggregate level.

While conceptually correct and in line with international standards, this adjustment can generate negative values for imports of transport services for certain industry groups which have no economic meaning. These adjustments were included in previous I/O tables, but depending on data for individual years, imported services of water and air transport more than compensate for the negative adjustment for a particular industry group, thus avoiding negatives appearing in the columns of Table 3 (Imports).

In the alternative view these negatives have been removed by further adjusting the data to offset the value of freight and insurance on imports provided by residents by adding the value back into imports and, to maintain the balance on the current account, adding a similar value to exports. The value of this adjustment in 2004-05 is $941m.

The alternative view is available on request from Rob Burnside on 02 6252 7816, email <rob.burnside@abs.gov.au>.