The objective of the Internatioanl Input-Output Association (IIOA) is the advancement of knowledge in the field of input-output analysis, including improvements in basic data, theoretical insights and modelling, and applications, both traditional and novel, of input-output techniques. This includes the use of input-output techniques in such areas as energy, environment, international trade, financial flows, as well as price and general equilibrium analysis.

The Association fosters the exchange of ideas by arranging meetings and conferences, sponsoring a journal, providing a directory of members, encouraging the formation of, and communication among, regional and specialised input-output associations, cooperating with scholars in other fields and establishing contacts with enterprises, governments and international organisations interested in the use of multi-sectoral, multi-regional and multi-national modelling.

The IIOA grew out of an informal world-wide network of economists, government officials, engineers and managers with interests in input-output analysis. As research in input-output analysis progressed, new ideas and information were exchanged at international conferences, organized at roughly 4-year intervals. The resolution to form the IIOA and its journal Economic Systems Research, was taken at the Eighth Conference, held in Sapporo, Japan in 1986. The IIOA was registered as a scientific non-profit membership association in Vienna, Austria, in April 1988.