There are currently several important global initiatives that compile and make available statistical economic input-output data (IO). This is done typically on a multi-regional basis (covering many countries and regions, hence MRIO) reflecting the fact that international trade is (still) very much a reality. Environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) databases that are in turn based on economic activity IO data, are increasingly used to examine environmental footprints of economic activities and play an important role in the attribution and screening of regional and sectoral contributions to environmental stresses.
Yet there is a lot of diversity and complexity in the organization of these typically large datasets. This complicates the adoption and use of EEIO, as it requires the dedication of time and effort to acquire and process data, both initially and potentially with any updates. Motivated by this context, we discuss a simple, generic and portable format for disseminating Input-Output data. The format is inspired from the Graph representation of Input-Output matrices. It allows a unified and very extensible description which can be serialized into standard csv files but also inside a minimal portable sqlite database file.
