Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics no 546 - 2025
The Breakdown of Final Consumption of Agrifood Products Into Values Added. Attempting a Europe‑Wide Comparison
Philippe Boyer and Jean-Pierre Butault
The views or opinions expressed by the authors engage only themselves, and neither the institutions they work with, nor INSEE.
Abstract
This article proposes an intra-European comparison of the breakdown of consumption expenditure on agrifood products into values added induced for the different branches, taxes and imports. It focuses in particular on the level of the share of agriculture in this consumption, along with its determinants. This study makes use of the calculations first proposed by W. Leontief, tailored to the available data (Eurostat input-output tables), and builds upon two measures which already exist at national level: the “euro alimentaire” in France, and the “food dollar” in the USA. The results show that those countries with high imports and high taxes stand apart from those countries where the distribution of consumption expenditure is more favourable towards value added. Countries also vary in the way this value added is distributed between the trade and service sectors, on the one hand, and agriculture and the agrifood processing industry, on the other. In France, compared with other European nations, the breakdown of expenditure is fairly favourable to value added, while the share taken by agriculture is close to the European mean.
Article (pdf, 1 Mo )
Online Appendix (pdf, 1 Mo )
Boyer, P. & Butault, J.‑P. (2025). The Breakdown of Final Consumption of Agrifood Products Into Values Added. Attempting a Europe‑Wide Comparison. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 546, 81–101. doi: 10.24187/ecostat.2025.546.2134