Aggregate Measures of Complex Economic Structure and Evolution

Abstract

It is perhaps in the nature of complex systems that they call for aggregate measures that enable analysts to grasp their structure and evolution without being overwhelmed by their very complexity. Complex interindustry theory and models are a typical case, where the underlying database-an input−output table-routinely contains thousands of data points for a single year. Within input−output analysis, quantitative measures have been developed that describe and characterize interindustry interactions and that have been used to compare economies, both in a static taxonomy and through their evolution over time. First, we review and critically discuss a number of concepts that have been proposed and applied to interindustry systems, such as interconnectedness, interrelatedness, linkages, and economic landscapes. Second, we apply these concepts to a case study of the Australian economy between 1975 and 1999 in terms of environmental headline indicators. Our results enable the reader to judge the usefulness and ability of the measures in capturing the key structural elements and evolutionary processes governing the interaction between the economy and the environment. For the Australian case study, the measures showed a diversifying economy occurring together with a specialization of environmental flows.

Resilience and Complexity: A Bibliometric Review and Prospects for Industrial Ecology

“…In light of the concept's proliferation in the academy and in public discourse, research on resilience in IE has been limited. This contrasts markedly with IE research on complex systems, which is blossoming in subfields such as industrial symbiosis (Chertow and Ehrenfeld ; Baas ), industrial ecosystems (Ashton ; Zhu and Ruth ), I‐O modeling (Wood and Lenzen ), sustainability transitions (Rotmans and Loorbach ), LCA (Davis et al ), and supply chains (Christopher and Peck ). This is a significant and welcome development given that, in 2007, just six articles in IE focused on agency, complexity, or complex systems theory (Dijkema and Basson ).…”

A sub-national economic complexity analysis of Australia’s states and territories

“…However, recently global and regional MRIO databases that have a high resolution of specific commodities have been produced (Lenzen, Moran, Kanemoto, & Geschke, 2013;. IO tables have been previously used to examine national EC (Szyrmer, 1985a(Szyrmer, , 1985b, with Wood and Lenzen (2009) This paper applies Hausmann and Hidalgo's EC analysis method to examine the complexity of the Australian sub-national (interstate) economy. We determine the number of export goods or services that each state and territory has a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) in, and visualise the relative complexity of Australia's interstate and international exports.…”

Complexity and Industrial Ecology

“…Recognizing that this is a true sociotechnical system, they conclude that there is much to be gained from a synergy in systems-of-systems engineering and industrial ecology. Wood and Lenzen (2009) have completed a thorough input−output analysis of the Australian economy over its evolution from 1975 to 1999 and explain how their aggregate results can be used as a proxy for complexity of an economy. Instead of employing a bottom-up approach, they take a snapshot of an entire economy and focus on indicators for the evolution of that sociotechnical system and its interaction with the environment.…”