A comparative study on the structure of the chemical industry in Belgium and Italy

This paper attempts a comparison of production structures of the chemical industry between Italy and Belgium using a sub-matrix of a large input-output table. There are studies of comparative production structures in an economy but a disaggregate study has not been attempted for a particular industry. The criteria of difference in technique or intermediate use of a product indicate that there are similarities in some of the subsectors of the Belgian and Italian chemical industry while the criterion of direct and indirect requirements of domestic output and Frobenius root yield completely different results.