Hybrid Input-Output Analysis as a Tool for Communication Among Scientists of Different Disciplines: Experiences With Metallurgy and Materials Science

摘要

Coming into industrial ecology (IE) from mathematically oriented and data-intensive branches of economics and econometrics, I have been and still am fascinated by the ever-increasing possibilities of the productive interdisciplinary research work that IE can provide. Nonetheless, I notice a marked difference in procedures between IE and economics. This difference concerns the lesser use of (or lesser attention to) formal mathematical modeling in the IE community. Whereas economists usually start by introducing general equations and then proceed to their implementation using data, industrial ecologists tend to work with numerical tables and suchlike from the very beginning, without being bothered by mathematical representations and derivations. For the sake of fairness, I should point out that the situation in life cycle assessment (LCA) has changed significantly since the introduction of input-output analysis (IOA). In the area of material flow analysis (MFA), however, this approach still seems to be prevalent.