The Input-Output Analysis of Blue Industries: Comparative Study of Estonia and Finland

The paper focuses on examining the role of blue industries in the national economies of Estonia and Finland as two neighbouring countries that have a sea border. We exploit the Input-Output (I-O) methodology to analyse inter-industry linkages relying on the OECD I-O tables. The OECD database comprises information on 34 sectors of the national economy over the period 1995–2011. The results of the analysis show that despite rather weak overall backward and forward linkages of aggregated blue industries within the national economies, they play a remarkable role in the economic activities of maritime regions, and to a large extent drive the economic success of Estonian and Finnish regional and national economies in generating new growth and employment. The weak backward and forward linkages indicate that negative dynamics within the blue economy yield rather weak negative externalities for the overall economy, and by contrast, if the national economy as a whole is suffering under a crisis, the potential impact on industries is not particularly remarkable. These findings suggest that blue industries are relatively independent within national economies having a remarkable role in socio-economic development of maritime regions, and thereby, create good preconditions for the stable development of cross-border cooperation between the maritime regions of both countries.