The Use table
An aggregated combined use matrix at purchasers' prices is presented below. As in the previous table, industries are shown in the columns and commodities in the rows. Where the supply table presented Scottish output, the use matrix shows the demand for this output by industries and final demand sectors across the commodity rows.
Aggregate Combined Use Matrix 2004 (Purchasers' Prices), £millions
A copy of this table can be found in the latest statistics publication notice.
The use matrix can be split into 3 main sections.
The intermediate demand (section 1), which shows the inputs of commodities, both domestic and imported, used by Scottish industries in the production of their output.
The final demand (section 2), which shows the purchases of each product by each category of final demand (e.g. consumers, government, export)
The primary inputs (section 3), these inputs do not flow through the other industries, they are employees' salaries, taxes less subsidies on production and gross operating surplus, which together constitute Gross Value Added.
Prior to 2003, a domestic use matrix was produced. In this, imports were not included in intermediate demand but detailed separately to show domestically produced inputs required by industries as part of the production process and aggregate import totals from the rest of UK and rest of world.
Driven by a demand for a combined use matrix from users of the tables, the primary reason for moving to the combined use matrix is to allow the user to discern the consumption of intermediate goods and services by industries regardless of their origin (since it combines domestic and imported goods and services for each industry). As well as enabling scrutiny of overall input structures it also allows easier comparison with the UK input-output tables produced by ONS.
For further consistency with UK tables, and to improve tax and distribution margin estimation, the combined use matrix is constructed and balanced at purchasers' prices. The advantage of this system is that as taxes (VAT and others), margins and imports are stripped out of an already balanced purchaser price matrix, then at each stage, the tables are still balanced - for example when VAT is stripped out of the use matrix, it is offset by adding it into the taxes less subsidies GVA row in primary inputs. This ensures that the tables remain balanced when producing the basic price use matrix required for the production of symmetric tables and Leontief multipliers.
The 'domestic use' matrix produced in previous years showed imports separately in section 3, this was the total value of imported commodities used by Scottish industries in the production of their output. A fourth section (or quadrant) was included showing imports that do not flow through the domestic industries but are used directly by final demand. From 2003 these fourth section imports are subsumed into the combined final demand figures.
More information regarding the changes made this year, along with a comprehensive range of official information on the Scottish economy, can be found in the latest 2007 edition of Scottish Economic Statistics ( www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/ses, see the article on page 2 for "Recent Developments in the Scottish Input-Output Tables").
The Combined Use matrix is repeated at full 128-industry detail in the downloads section of this website.