This paper attempts to measure and analyze the interdependent economic relations
between the countries of Thailand and Vietnam, made possible by constructing a bilateral input-
output (I-O) table linking the said two countries. It is an inter-regional type of I-O models that
provides a compact and comprehensive accounting framework to quantify the economic inter-
relationships among and between industries located in the study regions. Similar to a single-region
(national) IO table, an Inter-Regional IO (IRIO) table can be used to estimate the magnitude of an
external “shock” on major macroeconomic indicators such as output, value-added, income and
employment. However, unlike its single-region counterpart, an IRIO table is able to capture and
assess the inter-regional spillover and feedback effects arising from an exogenous change in
demand for the output of any one of the study regions. In other words, constructing an IRIO table
will not only allow us to estimate the stimulus to production outside the study region benefiting
from, say, an increase in foreign demand for its output, but also the resultant impact on its output
arising from the production stimulus it causes in the other study regions. This study is deemed to
be a prototype of what AREES needs to support its ongoing efforts to develop an integrated
database for its proposed research project, entitled: “Impact Analysis of Infrastructure Investment
in the Indochina Region: An Input-Output (I-O) Approach.”
