Revisiting methods for estimating interregional input-output accounts: It's not just about trade flows

A basic underlying assumption in most of the research to date is that intermediate industry accounts of the economies in multiregional input-output (MRIO) tables exist and are accurate. In fact, if they exist at the subnational level, such accounts are, at best, roughly estimated and predicated on far less empirical information than is available for economies of nations. Moreover, intra-economy intermediate-industry flows are typically larger than the set of a region's commodity in- and out-flows. So, if intermediate industry flows in a set of MRIO accounts are noticeably mis-estimated, it follows that interregional trade coincidentally derived using them must be even more conspicuously in error.