Modelling economic circuit flows in a social accounting matrix framework. An application to Portugal

Abstract

Aggregated Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) will be built for the Portuguese economy in 1997, 1998 and 1999, based on the country's national accounts statistics. The SAMs will be shown as a working instrument for quantifying the flows in the economic circuit and for simulating the effects resulting from changes in such flows. The economic flows associated with the government subsectors will be emphasized, whilst accounting and fixed-price multipliers will be calculated to facilitate the study of the effects resulting from changes in the government's expenditure, which will also be subjected to a test on their veracity.

Acknowledgements

I would particularly like to thank Professor Ferreira do Amaral (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão) for the encouragement that he gave me and for the comments that he made on the earlier drafts of this article. I must stress, however, that any errors or omissions in this text are entirely my own responsibility.

Notes

¹ Previous studies (Santos, 1999, 2001) also included a financial account. In this case, however, it was not possible to produce such an account due to a lack of available information.

² The primary group includes agriculture, forestry and fishing (activities/products 01–05 of the National Accounts System). The secondary group includes industry, which in turn includes energy and construction (activities/products 10–45 of the National Accounts System). The tertiary group includes the rest of the economy (activities/products 50–95 of the National Accounts System) (EUROSTAT, 1996).