Regional economic analysis of major areas in South Korea: using 2005–2010–2015 multi-regional input–output tables

South Korea’s Seoul metropolitan area accounts for more than half of the country’s GDP and population. This phenomenon is exacerbating annually. Regions outside the metropolitan area of Korea are not only decreasing in terms of economic size, but are also becoming more dependent on the metropolitan area in terms of economic structure. Earlier, the metropolitan area was based on the service industry, while other regions had a large manufacturing sector; however, the size of the latter also increased in the metropolitan area over time. To analyze dependence on the Seoul Metropolitan area, this study conducts regional production inducement effects, regional division of labor, and three regional structural decomposition analyses using Korea’s 2005–2010–2015 multi-regional input–output table (MRIO) to further analyze dependence on the metropolitan area. Furthermore, this research integrates industry classification and realizes the price level of input–output tables to link 3 years of MRIO in three industries: wholesale and retail trade and product brokerage services, motor vehicles, semiconductors, and other electronic components. From the inter-regional production inducement effect, the relation between the metropolitan area and each region is calculated using the regional export and import effects of each region. Furthermore, the proportion of metropolitan areas in major industries and their changes are measured through regional division of labor, and through multi regional structural decomposition analysis, the growth factors of each region over 10 years are determined by own region, metropolitan area, and other regions.