IIOA Website

Annual reports 2008

Vienna, October 2009

Presidential Address

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

The Association is doing well. In the past two years we moved from a little more than three hundred to over five hundred members. This is partly due to the reduction of the membership fee for inhabitants of non-OECD countries and for students, and this is partly to the success of our conferences in Istanbul and Seville. Both attracted many non-members that used the surcharge on their registration fee to get a two-year free membership, or even a four-year free membership in case of non-OECD countries and students. Hence, I believe we need to decide to reduce the fees and surcharges for our members from OECD-countries equivalently, in order to grow on to some eight hundred members in another two years.

Last year the council decided to move to a yearly conference, marking our maturity as an international scientific association. Our 17th International Input-Output Conference in Sao Paulo is all set to become a very successful conference with presently (May 2009) already almost 200 registered participants, and in June next year we will continue our southern voyage with our 18th International IO Conference in Sydney. I hope to welcome you on both occasions, while the council is happy to receive conference proposals for 2011 and later.

This year is also special in the sense that we are saying goodbye to two officers who served the IIOA for a long time, and to whom we are indebted for the large amounts of time they invested in the Association. First, on behalf of all of you I like to thank our secretary, Norbert Rainer, who answered hundreds of questions from individual members, who kept the council informed and supported its decision making with proposals, information and advice. He was the institutional memory of the association, and helped a series of presidents well over a period of fifteen years. Second, I like to thank Erik Dietzenbacher who not only served the association’s Journal as its (co-)editor for fifteen years extremely well, but who also was the scientific chair of our conferences in New York 1998, Montréal 2002 and Sendai 2006.

So, the Association is doing well, as are its Journal and its Conferences, but how about IO analysis? The easy answer is: it is doing well too, precisely because the Association is doing well. The more serious answer is that IO analysis is doing well because of the continuous extension of its fields of application. Also it is doing well as judged by the intensive use of IO data, social accounting data and all kind of linked satellite accounts. However, it might do better if we could include the interaction of prices and quantities - between sectors, between institutions, between regions and between countries - in all of our applications, and thus at our Conferences and in our Journal.

Jan Oosterhaven
President, IIOA

Membership

As of April 30, 2009 the IIOA counted 513 members including those nominated by institutional members. Membership increased strongly since 2007. Each year ca. 90 members (20% in 2008) joined the IIOA. In 2007, 60% of these new members were attendees of the Istanbul conference who took advantage of the 2-year free membership for non-IIOA member participants. In 2008, only 18% of the new members joined through this mechanism.

Membership (as of April 30, 2009)
Individual members 513
Institutional members 15

Work of the Management

The work of the Management – Secretary and Treasurer - embraced the following usual activities: (a) Membership administration, (b) Recording of payments of Membership Fees, including dispatching reminders, (c) Responding to letters from members and others, (d) Communicating with the Council, (e) Communicating with our Publishing Company (subscription of members, address changes), (f) Communicating with the Editor of the journal Economic Systems Research, (g) Updating and enlarging the website together with the webmaster, (h) Organising the Council meetings and the General Assembly, (i) Acting on order of the Council, (j) Supporting the preparation our the Conferences.

The new Web-based members Administration System was rolled out in June 2008.

Results of the Council Activities

During the Seville Conference the Council held a face-to-face meeting on 10 July 2008. During the rest of the year the Council members are in e-mail contact and decisions are taken by e-mail. The main issues of Council activities refer to all activities of the IIOA as are reported here in the Annual Report and need not to be repeated under this topic. However, the following issues should be mentioned:

The Council decided on the new By-laws, which had to be updated because of the new statutes.
The term of Erik Dietzenbacher as Editor of ESR ended last year. Erik Dietzenbacher announced to retire from this position The Council appointed Manfred Lenzen and Bart Los as Editors (2009-2013).
The function terms of the Secretary Norbert Rainer and the Treasurer Christof Paparella ended in 2008. Christof Paparella was voted as Treasurer for the period 2009 – 2011. As Norbert Rainer, who served as Secretary from 1994 – 2008, announced to retire from this position, the Council voted Oliver Fritz as new Secretary (period 2009-2011).
The Council reappointed Klaus Hubacek as webmaster (period 2009-2010).

Norbert Rainer, Secretary, IIOA (until 2008)

Report on the International Input-Output Meeting on Managing the Environment, July, 9 -11, 2008, Seville, Spain

The 2008 International Input-Output Conference was held July 9-11 at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla. Emilio Fontela was supposed to chair the program committee, but regretfully passed away in 2007. I was asked to step in and Erik Dietzenbacher, Klaus Hubacek, José Rueda-Cantuche and Bent Thage kindly joined me. We have organized two special sessions to commemorate Emilio Fontela and Chris DeBresson, who also passed away in 2007.

I thank all who generously lent their time and energy in making the 2008 Seville conference a success, especially the staff members and students of Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, skillfully led by Alejandro Cardenete and José Rueda-Cantuche.

Papers are downloadable from
http://www.iioa.org/Conference/intermediate2008-downable%20paper.html

Thijs ten Raa, Chair, Scientific Programme Committee

Preparation of the 17th International Input-Output Conference, July 13 - 17, 2009, São Paulo, Brazil

The 17th International Input-Output Conference will take place from 13 – 17 July 2009 in São Paulo, Brazil, and will be jointly organised by the IIOA and the Department of Economics of the School of Economics, Administration and Accountancy of the University of São Paulo (USP). The scientific Programme Committee will be chaired by Geoffrey Hewings, the Local Organising Committee by Joaquim Jose Martins Guilhoto.

The scientific committee has accepted 154 papers for presentation, of which 100 full papers have been submitted so far (end of May 2009). The deadline for the submission of the full paper has been postponed to June 12th. The accepted papers have a total of 383 authors and co-authors, from which 193 have been registered for the meeting. However, only around 100 participants have already paid the registration or made note of paying the registration fee at the meeting. The deadline for the payment of the registration fee for the paper to be included in the program has also been extended to June 12th. Giving the above, the LOC is working with the possibility of having between 130 and 150 participants at the meeting.

The keynote speakers for the meeting will be: a) Prof. Thijs ten Raa, Tilburg University, Netherlands; b) Dr. Sanjiv Mahajan, Head of National Accounts Strategy and Development Office for National Statistics, UK; c) Prof. Yang Cuihong Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, CAS, China; and d) Prof. Eduardo Haddad, University of São Paulo, Brazil. We have reserved installations at the University of São Paulo to have the capability of handling up to 10 simultaneous parallel sections, and an auditorium that can accommodate up to 250 people for the plenary sessions, general assembly, and opening and closing ceremonies. We are also making arrangements so the sessions in the main auditorium could be transmitted by the internet (IPTV) and also recorded.

The Brazilian statistical office, IBGE, is providing a Cyber Café to be available during the meeting. Besides this cyber café we are also providing a computer room for the participants and the participant will also have access to the wireless network throughout our building.

For further information see the conference website:
http://aplicativos.fipe.org.br/io/htm/event/event.asp

Joaquim Jose Martins Guilhoto, Chair of the Local Organising Committee

Preparation of the 18th International Input-Output Conference, June, 20-25, 2010, Sydney, Australia

The 18th International Input-Output Conference will take place from the 20-25th June 2010 in Sydney, Australia, and will be jointly organised by the IIOA and the Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis (ISA), School of Physics at the University of Sydney. The Scientific Programme Committee will be chaired by José Manual Rueda-Cantuche with vice-chair Klaus Hubacek. The Local Organising Committee will be chaired by Manfred Lenzen with Jodie Gonzalez Jennings as acting-chair.

For further information see the conference website: http://www.isa.org.usyd.edu.au/io2010

Jodie Gonzalez Jennings, Acting-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee

Report on the IIOA Newsletter

The president of the IIOA opened the first issue with a welcome editorial, followed by Faye Duchin with an interesting editorial on the challenges of sustainable development. The third issue's editorial showed us the learnings from the last IIOMME Conference and subsequently, Norihisa Sakurai informed us about the Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies. The IIOA Newsletter has also benefited from the collaboration of two additional contributions in the form of special writings dedicated to the sections Tales from the Input-Output World and Frontiers and Extensions, namely: Bert Steenge and Helmut Maier, respectively. I would also like to thank all remaining contributors without whom this first year of the Newsletter would not have been possible. And last but not least important, special thanks to Mike Lahr for his help in the final editing process of each issue.

During 2008, the list of e-mail addresses used by the editors has been notably improved. Around fifteen to twenty days in advance to the release of each issue, a request e-mail was sent to the list of contributors asking them for relevant information on different items. Within the first ten days of February, May, August and November of 2008, the editors sent an announcement to the same list informing about the availability of the issues at the front page of the IIOA website. Also, the messages were posted in the IIOA Message Board. The list of potential contributors is divided into two exclusive groups: IIOA members, and Statistical offices and other research institutes (235). The frequent mailing activity of the newsletter is also serving to update continuously the list of IIOA members email addresses.

Finally, I would consider this first year of the IIOA Newsletter successful with an annual average of 15,000 visits to the IIOA Message Board announcement. Thanks to all of you for your support.

The Newsletters can be downloaded from our website:
http://www.iioa.org/News-newsletters.htm

José M. Rueda-Cantuch, IIOA Newsletter Editor

Report on the Working Papers in Input-Output Economics (WPIOX)

The Working Papers in Input-Output Economics (WPIOX) series that was decided at the Council Meeting in Seville in July 2008, was launched in October 2008. The launching took place by the following three channels: By e-mail to all IIOA members on October 9, by an extended version in the IIOA Newsletter in November, and finally a short version of the announcement on the Message Board.

The archive is set up under the auspices of the IIOA and contains working papers in input-output economics as defined in its broadest sense. That is, studies that use data collections that are in the format of (or are somehow related to) input-output tables and/or employ input-output type of techniques as tools of analysis.

The number of submission has been more modest than was originally envisaged, at least by the editors. During 2008 six papers were posted on the web site, and 2009 so far only two papers have been posted. This low number of posted papers is not due to an overly critical attitude and high rejection rate from the side of the editors (which would also have been contradicting the very purpose with this initiative). In fact no papers that fell within the very broad definition of input-output economics have been rejected. The editors have, however, in some cases clarified the borderline vis-à-vis for example articles and papers that had already been published in official statistical publications.

There may be a need for fresh initiatives to draw attention the WPIOX, with a view to receiving many more submissions in the future including for example revised conference papers.

All the paper can be downloaded from our website:
http://www.iioa.org/Journal-working%20paper.htm

Erik Dietzenbacher and Bent Thage
Editors of the Working papers in Input-Output Economics

Report of the Webmaster

During the last year we have continued updating and improving the IIOA web provisions. Besides, as mentioned above, an electronic working-paper database with a search engine has been designed, tested and implemented and has been launched after last year’s IIOA conference in Seville.

To facilitate communication amongst members of the IIOA and general users of input-output techniques a Message Board had been provided. Content of the notification emails has been improved though providing short description of message content in the subject line. Currently, more than 700 users have signed up. This large number is good news as it allows everybody to reach a wide audience for announcements or questions they might have. On the hand, this has created some strain on the server as it takes a longer time to post messages and requires some patience from the person posting the message.

The next larger activity will be a standardized web-based submission system for conferences. We will be testing the success of the one used currently for the São Paulo Conference – and will then consider to build on that one. This should make the work for local organizers and scientific chair much easier and should provide quicker feedback to conference participants

Klaus Hubacek, Webmaster, IIOA

Editor’s report

As of the end of 2008, Tommy Wiedmann had started working on a special issue on the measurement and analysis of ‘carbon footprints’, a topic that generates a lot attention in both academic and policy circles. Furthermore, initial plans were started to devote a special issue to applications of input-output analysis studying economic and environmental impacts of tourism and big events like cultural festivals and sports tournaments. These initiatives should ensure that the ‘tradition’ to have one special issue per volume can be kept alive.

Overview of submissions and their status

	Number of papers
Year	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Rejected directly by the editors	10	14	9	3	3
Rejected because of referee reports	12	6	9	4	5
Withdrawn by the author(s)	-	-	-	-	-
Currently with the referees	14	8	9	27	27
Currently with the author(s) for revision	6	8	6	4	4
Accepted for publication	6	6	7	4	2
Special issues	7	6	7	13	7

Total	55	48	47	54	48

Rejection rate (%)^a	46	48	45	17	20
Acceptance rate (%)^a	13	14	18	10	5
Remainder (%)^a	42	38	37	73	76

^a Percentages are based only on ordinary submissions, i.e. excluding the contributions to special issues. The remainder consists of submissions with the referees or with the author(s) for revision.

A detailed account of the submissions and their status on 1 January 2009 is given above. This table also allows for comparisons with the four years before. The main conclusion might be that the number of submissions has been fairly stable in recent times, in particular when the submission of the majority of articles for the 2009 special issue soon after January 1, 2009, is taken into account. The high fraction of articles with referees in 2008 is partly due to the fact that most submissions were received in the second half of the year, after the Seville conference.

The 2008 volume was the last volume of Economic Systems Research for which one of us (Erik Dietzenbacher) acted as editor. He hopes (as do the newly appointed editors Manfred Lenzen and Bart Los) that the number of high-quality submissions to the journal will rise in the years to come. All IIOA-members and other scholars active in related fields are kindly invited to have their studies considered for publication!

Erik Dietzenbacher, Editor, Economic Systems Research
Bart Los, Co-Editor, Economic Systems Research

Report of the Treasurer

Fiscal year 2008 was characterized by the successful go-live of the IIOA web-based administration system (WEBADMIN). The system features a Paypal online payment facility which enables IIOA members to make their membership contributions online. This service has been very actively used by IIOA members since the go-live. Within the last 12 months, over US$ 5,000, i.e. 60% of all private membership contributions have been made via PayPal. WEBADMIN also features decentralized address data updating, access to updated IIOA member contacts for networking, and access to free downloads of Economic System Research.

Due to the strategy followed by IIOA treasury, the financial crisis had no impact on the assets of IIOA. The treasury strategy aims at keeping assets liquid, achieving moderate interest, and minimizing risk of asset loss. IIOA does not undertake any form of speculative investments aimed at capital gains, not even if rating agencies issue excellent ratings for investment titles. Thus, the assets of the organization rose from around US$ 162,000 to slightly below US$ 173,000. These assets serve to finance travel grants for students’ participation at the IIOA conferences, awards for scientific work, and also as a safety cushion to cover financial obligations arising from risks associated with the organization of IIOA conferences world wide.

Auditing of the IIOA accounts continues to be conducted by Otto Kremser, the chartered accountant appointed in 2006, and Joachim Lamel who has served IIOA as auditor for many years. The financial report compiled by the treasurer is stated in US dollars while the majority of the IIOA expenditures accrue in Euros.

The financial report for 2008 indicates that projections for the fiscal year had been somewhat overly optimistic on the revenues side and too pessimistic on the expenditures side. Thus, operations in 2008 lead to a surplus of US$ 13,193.

On the revenues side, membership contributions decreased from their 2007 level due to the reduction in membership fees for non-OECD and student members to US$ 15 per person and year. The level of membership contributions for non-student OECD members continued to amount to US$ 60 for one year. Interest revenue dropped due to the global economic downturn. Royalty revenues jumped to US$ 38,560 due to the re-negotiated contract with the publishing house of Economic Systems Research, Routledge. Refunds for the Seville conference were deferred to January 2009 and are therefore not displayed in 2008.

On the expenditure side, the cost of publishing the ESR journal stated for 2008 actually refers to 2007, due to delayed invoicing by Routledge. The expenses for Editorial assistance of US$ 5,000 for editing the ESR journal in 2009 were issued in December for the subsequent year and thus are displayed in the 2008 accounts. Mailing and postage costs virtually disappeared as IIOA moved towards web-based membership administration and no elections were held. The item Banking charges and tax on interest accrued decreased notably since IIOA had fewer interest revenues in 2008. Administration costs decreased again in 2008 and are now down to less than US$ 1,000. It shall be noted that this is less than 5 percent of what other scientific organizations with a comparable membership base spend. ICT expenses increased to US$ 11,327 in 2008 since the new Members-Area and Webadmin system had been completed and invoiced. It shall be noted that the costs for the new IT development was US$ 3,500 lower than projected, due to very precise specification of the software by the management, close monitoring of the software programming process, and a smooth go-live. Conference expenses were lower than expected, due to the Management and Council’s proactive approach to contain travel costs.

For 2009, IIOA treasury expects a deficit. The revenues side is expected to remain strong. The delayed Seville conference refund will strengthen the revenues side. Royalties will remain at their current level. Membership contributions are expected remain stable. ICT expenditure will return to its level of 2007. Conference costs, however, will rise substantially, as the number of travel grants for student members from non-OECD countries more than doubled and the venue of the conference is rather remote for a large number of grant holders and Council members. A conservative estimate of the expenses for the Sao Paulo conference amounts to US$ 47,500. Of these, US$27,500 will be travel grants for young scientists. US$ 5,000 will continue to be spent annually on assistance to the chief editor of the ESR journal. Prizes and awards will account for US$ 2,000 (Leontief Prize and Sir Richard Stone Prize).

Christof Paparella, Treasurer, IIOA

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