DREAMING OF THE WORLD INPUT-OUTPUT MODEL (November 30, 2014)

I dreamt that I was talking to several leading researchers in input-output analysis about the need for a world input-output model that could help policy makers understand the world economy better. I was trying to persuade them to get together with everyone else working in this field so as to get the necessary data for some fifty key countries and trade flows between them. The United Nations should be interested in funding such an endeavor, I argued. The World Bank could house the research team developing the world input-output model. I even envisaged a large amphitheater with a huge sphere in the middle showing the graph with all industries and flows between them in various colors. Potential bottlenecks in world trade could be pointed out and their effects assessed by the assembled researchers. This would be of great value in following the key commodities and services, such as crude oil and finance, underpinning the world economy. The model could be used to investigate possible disruptions by climate change or regional conflict. When I woke up, it was morning already. I immediately remembered my recent lament about the world input-output analysis, in which I imagined my early work in the field utilized to better understand world trade (“Wassily Leontief and I,” May 4, 2014). But then I went to my study and searched for world input-output analysis on the World Wide Web. I found it in a jiffy, of course. The world input-output database dominates the search results. Predictably, the World Bank is there, as well. The only thing that is missing is the prominence of the field in the management of the world economy. This is well beyond the human species at this stage of its evolution. The best I can do about it is to keep dreaming.