MEMORANDUM

to discharge my assistant would critically impair the progress of the planned research. It is
practically impossible to find another man of similar experience for this work.” Leontief
was notified shortly after submitting the application that the Committee had voted to grant
an “additional sum not to exceed $300” to complete the research on the 1919 table and
make the grant available immediately (rather than from the beginning of the coming
academic year). The first input-output table was published only six months later.
After the release of funds for completing the 1919 table a paper with the table was
submitted to the Review of Economic Statistics and published already in August 1936
(Leontief 1936a) as the first ever input-output table based on comprehensive national
statistics.
In 1936 Leontief applied to the Committee for a grant to compile a 1929 table. As the
term input-output table had not yet been coined Leontief used different denotations, e.g.
“Tableau Economique of U.S.A.” The census data for 1929 had not yet been completely
processed in 1932 and Leontief had then decided to use the 1919. The decision was not
obviously the best one as the 1919 census data had many shortcomings compared to the
later censuses. He had chosen not to delay the work on the 1919 table to do the 1929 table
and publish them together. After studying the 1929 material he realized that the
comparative abundance of primary statistical sources made it clear that the results for 1929
would be considerably more complete and reliabel than those obtained for 1919.
The work on the 1929 table could e.g. benefit from national account figures prepared
by Kuznets. The 1929 table was used exactly the same specifications as the 1919 table to
facilitate comparison. The preparation of it benefitted from the experience with the 1919
table and thus proceeded faster. It and was largely completed during the academic year
1936/37.
In the 1936 application Leontief mentioned the idea of a monograph based on the
results from both 1919 and 1929 but that turned out to take a lot longer time to complete
than he had expected. Even with the shortcomings of the 1919 table the advantages of
having tables for two years were convincing. It would allow
1) a complete statistical background for a systematic study of the structural changes of
American economy over ten years; and
2) material for corroboration of the stability of the structural features of the economy.
While in 1936 Leontief published the 1919 table and supervised the work on the 1929
table he also finished up the theoretical work on how the tables could be used to determine
structural features of the economy and also calculate these numerically. Leontief found out
at this time (if not earlier) that it was no practical possibility for doing the numerical
calculations in full format for the more than 40 industries in the table. Perhaps he had
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