Using network science to quantify economic disruptions in regional input-output networks

Abstract

Input Output (IO) tables provide a standardised way of looking at monetary flows between all industries in an economy. IO tables can be thought of as networks - with the nodes being different industries and the edges being the flows between them. We develop a network-based analysis to consider a multi-regional IO network at regional and subregional level within a country. We calculate both traditional matrix-based IO measures (e.g. 'multipliers') and new network theory-based measures at this higher spatial resolution. We contrast these methods with the results of a disruption model applied to the same IO data in order to demonstrate that betweenness centrality gives a good indication of flow on economic disruption, while eigenvector-type centrality measures give results comparable to traditional IO multipliers.We also show the effects of treating IO networks at different levels of spatial aggregation.