In 1986 I was invited to a conference session celebrating the work of Wassily Leontief and Walter Isard, the progenitors of input-output analysis as a whole and regional input-output analysis, respectively. My paper was among those selected for a volume published by Oxford University Press in 1989.[1] It felt good to be at the frontier of the entire field. In 1997 I was invited to a conference session celebrating the work of Ronald Miller, another star of input-output analysis, who was quite helpful in my own development in the mid-1980s. Today I learned that my paper from this conference has been selected for a volume to be published by Macmillan in 2001.[2] Being still among the twenty-odd people pushing the frontiers of the field felt good, once again. This time around, this feeling did not come unalloyed, though. For some reason, I was quite sure that my paper will not be selected for the next volume of this kind, which would be published a decade from now or so. More, I was quite sure that this paper would never be written. Input-output analysis has started to bore me as long as a decade ago.

Footnote

1. Miller, R.E., K.R. Polenske, and A.Z. Rose, eds., Frontiers of Input-Output Analysis, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

2. Lahr, M.L., and E. Dietzenbacher, eds., Input-Output Analysis: Frontiers and Extensions, London: Macmillan, 2001.