Producing regional production multipliers for Irish marine sector policy: A location quotient approach

Abstract

Economic activity does not exist in a vacuum. Activities in the marine sector not only directly affect the industries in the sector but also influence other sectors through inter-sectoral linkages. Recent research in Ireland has estimated the impact of inter-sectoral linkages of the marine sector at the national level via production multipliers. However, the importance of the marine sector on regional economies has been well established. Disaggregating the national Input-Output table using location quotients has become widely accepted as a quantitative method for regional impact assessment of industry performance. Using a relatively novel location quotient, the FLQ, this paper produces a set of regional production multipliers for ten marine based sectors for the Border, Midland and West (BMW) region and the South East (SE) region in Ireland. A final analysis, using the regionalised marine production multipliers provides a preliminary case study for the potential of a seafood cluster in the BMW region. Whilst concluding comments offer an insight into how the LQ method may be used to develop a strategy for the multi-sectoral Irish marine sector.