A New Approach to Identifying Structural Development in Economic Systems: The Case of the Queensland Economy

Abstract

Recently, some economists have come to view economic development as a process of ongoing structural change which has self‐organisational features. What is required is evidence concerning the self‐organisational character of economic development. In other words, is economic growth associated with growth in the complexity of its structure and with a parallel rise in organisational interdependence? An extended version of qualitative input‐output analysis, termed Minimal Flow Analysis (MFA), is used in this paper to analyse the structural linkages and changes that have occurred in the Queensland economy over the last two decades. The MFA evidence confirms that there has been a steady increase in the complexity of the Queensland economy. Economic coordination has occurred, to an increasing extent, through market intermediation. From a self‐organisational perspective, it is clear that the Queensland economy has followed a rapid and coherent developmental path, marked by the emergence of bonded structures in its core and increasing complexity on its periphery.