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Sun 27 Aug, 2006 06:09 pm
I am trying to bring up the concepts in my head that I think were called forward reach and backward reach in my economic history course. I have notes somewhere but they are buried. Maybe "thrust" rather than "reach" in one of them?
For example, in a local economy--say a dairy economy, the forward reach would maybe be the industries that make something with the product of your economy--such as cheese factories or pizza chains. And I think the backward reach would be the industries that support the central industry in your economy--in other words the companies that make and sell feed, milking machines, and so on.
And then there are sort of ancillary enterprises such as home builders who meet the housing demand for hired hands or factory workers. Or the trucking companies that carry off the pizzas or whatever. What would that be called in this structural terminology? Or maybe movie theaters for entertaining the workers in their leisure time in that town?
All these industries rely on the central economy and enrich it; yet, they depend on the main industry.
This came up with the post-World War II auto industry, that one in six American jobs or something was auto interrelated.
Does this sound familiar to anyone? I am writing something and need to get those concepts straight. I searched it on google but didn't get much. I may have the terms off slightly, but I will welcome getting straightened out by an expert here.
Thanks anybody!
Sal
The following article of Wikipedia may give some background knowledge..
input-output analysis (wikipedia)
Thanks! I just noticed your reply--don't know why I didn't see the message that there had been one. Very helpful. -Sal