Simultaneous I-O tables balancing at current and constant prices

The balancing of a system of national accounts is normally carried out by balancing first the flows at current prices and then those at constant prices. However, this procedure in two distinct steps makes it impossible to “control” the consistency of the system of deflators. Therefore, a system of simultaneous balancing at current and constant prices is necessary to make it possible to obtain a consistent system of flows at current and constant prices, and of deflators. This paper introduces a simultaneous balancing method as an extension of the methodology described in Nicolardi (1998, 2000) for the simultaneous balancing at current and constant prices of a generic system of economic accounting. The application of the method to the Italian 2005 input-output table has yielded significant results in terms of balancing.