The Hierarchical Structure of Intermediate Markets: A New Approach to the Analysis of Trade Flow Tables

Abstract

The analysis of business-to-business markets is important for marketing managers and public policy makers alike. After all, market exchanges among intermediate sectors are generally around 67% of all market exchanges, yet almost no tools have been developed to systematically analyze business-to-business markets at the macro level. The conversion of input-output tables into trade flow tables is an important step in the analysis of marketing system structures. In this context, triangulation provides a tool to examine the sequence of suppliers and customers in intermediate markets in a longitudinal and cross-sectional manner. In this article, triangulation is applied to the Dutch trade flow table in order to analyze the sequence of market exchanges in the Dutch intermediate markets.