The Development of the Input-Output Tables in Italy and Spain. A Reading Through Hollis B. Chenery’s and Vera Cao-Pinna’s Contributions

The article focuses on the construction of Input-Output (IO) tables in Italy and Spain in the 1950s. It states that the construction of the first Italian table in 1952 was primarily influenced by the engineering approach of Hollis B. Chenery and his studies on regional development models. Vera Cao-Pinna played a fundamental role in creating the first Italian IO table in 1952. At the end of 1954, a team led by Valentin Andrés Alvarez at the Instituto de Estudios Políticos in Spain began studying the intersectoral economic relations of IO tables and sought collaboration from the Italian experts of the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), later known as the Mutual Security Agency (MSA). In 1956, Cao-Pinna went to Madrid to assist the researchers, and the first Spanish IO table was published in 1958. The article concludes that Cao-Pinna played a significant role in transferring IO knowledge between Italy and Spain, suggesting a case of ideas transfer through the classic approach of national histories of economic thought. The direct influence of Chenery, however, was less pronounced and reached Spain through other channels.