Supply-Use Tables

Supply-use tables (SUTs) show where goods and services come from and how they are used within an economy during an accounting period. They arrange products against industries and apply the accounting identity that, for each product, total supply equals total use.

Structure of the tables

The supply table records products supplied by domestic industries and imports. The use table records how those products enter intermediate consumption by industries or final uses such as household consumption, government consumption, capital formation, inventories and exports.

• Rows trace the supply and use of each product, while industry columns reveal each industry's output and combination of inputs.
• The use table also records components of gross value added, linking intermediate inputs with industries' contribution to GDP.

What inter-industry transactions reveal

SUTs reveal the economy's production structure by showing which products each industry produces and which products it consumes as inputs. They therefore expose input dependence, production linkages and the movement of products from primary production through processing, trade, transport and final demand.

• They help distinguish the value of a product from trade and transport margins and taxes less subsidies on products through valuation adjustments.
• For agricultural produce, they can show the roles of processing, transport and distribution, but not the exact payment received by an individual farmer or the full price transmission along a specific supply chain.

From SUTs to input-output tables

SUTs are generally rectangular product-by-industry tables, so they do not directly form a complete industry-by-industry transaction matrix. Using assumptions about production technology and product allocation, they can be transformed into symmetric input-output tables showing product-by-product or industry-by-industry flows.

• Their balancing process reconciles inconsistencies among production, expenditure, trade and other national-accounts data.
• The resulting framework supports multiplier analysis, productivity assessment and estimation of direct and indirect effects across industries.