Social Accounting Matrices for the EU-27 in 2010. Building a new database for RHOMOLO

This paper describes the construction process of a new set of national social accounting matrices (SAMs) for the EU-27 in 2010 that will be regionalized and used in RHOMOLO, the regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model developed by the European Commission to evaluate the impact of cohesion policies. After a careful analysis of the input-output frameworks available in Eurostat and the World input-output database (WIOD), the latter has been used as the main data source, which is completed with information from national accounts in Eurostat. The structure of the SAM is determined by the sectoral disaggregation in WIOD. It includes a useful disaggregation of labour by skill levels and a disaggregation of the foreign sector in the EU and rest of the world. In the paper it is clearly described how to elaborate a symmetric input-output table product by product at purchasers' prices using supply and use tables and applying the industry technology. It is also described the reallocation of social contributions needed to properly assign tax revenues to government and avoid the problems generated by the second redistribution of income in national accounts. The description of the SAMs and their availability for the EU-27 can be very useful to researchers in applied economics and it may help to better understand the structure of RHOMOLO.