War Machine, Peace Machine: Input-Output Analysis as a Case Study of Public Intervention

Abstract

Input-output analysis was a particular way of state intervention. Its success was due to the connection of a theory to a model and to an instrument. It was a tool for science and for action. This articulation of an explanatory, a descriptive and a prescriptive dimension may be understood as an expression of the “Modern Project” inherited from the Enlightenment. Indeed, science undertakes a double program of Truth and Progress that is analysed in this text in the case of input-output analysis.input-output analysis; leontief; public economics; political philosophy; modernity; methodology; applied economics; theory; models; truth; progress; art; science;