A 2004 Social Accounting Matrix for Israel: Documentation of an Economy-Wide Database with a Focus on Agriculture, the Labour Market, and Income Distribution

Abstract

This document describes the Israeli Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the year 2004, developed by the Agricultural and Food Policy Group at the University of Hohenheim. The SAM is a part of a larger research project which aims to analyse several economic, trade, and labour policies in the context of economic integration of agriculture between Israel and the West Bank. Data are obtained from various sources in Israel. Sources include the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), the Central Bank of Israel (CBI), and the Israeli Tax Authority (ITA). Data from sources outside of Israel are used to fill-in some gaps in the domestic reports. External sources include the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. The SAM provides data on 47 sectors with activities separated from commodities, 36 labour force types, 10 household groups, as well as 17 tax accounts in addition to 37 accounts reserved for taxes on production factors. A topdown approach is pursued by first building a balanced macro SAM which is consistent with 2004 national account data. Subsequently, the macro SAM is disaggregated into a micro SAM which is balanced in several steps.