The Recovery of the Input-Output Analysis in the Czech Republic

The input-output analysis has a long tradition in the former Czechoslovakia starting in the 1960s. These models were originally used for central planning and price re-construction during socialism. Since the 1970s, there have been three sets of tables, for Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. After 1989, input-output models gained a label of socialist planning instrument and they were mostly abandoned in Eastern countries. On the contrary, sophisticated input-output models became accessible for the most researchers in the West because of common usage of personal computers. Matrix computations that took months in the past became available to everyone. Alongside with the supply of input-output tables of the EU countries, also researchers in the Central and East Europe started to use these sets of models again. In the recent time, the input-output models are widely used both on national and international level, ranging from private agencies to the OECD. Nowadays, the recovery of Leontief models and theory has been used in the Czech Republic, as well. Such models have become a standard part of the research for macroeconomic, environmental, regional and similar purposes.