Physical input-output accounting of the wood and paper flow in Germany

•The wood and paper flow in Germany is illustrated with a physical input-output table.•The hypothetical extraction method is applied to single out key industries.•There is a high linearity of the wood and paper flow (“throughput economy”).

This paper presents a physical input-output table (PIOT) that shows the complete wood and paper flow through the economic system of Germany. The PIOT illustrates the wood and paper flow between different sectors and to different types of final use. It can be used both as a monitoring instrument and for scenario analysis. The hypothetical extraction method is applied in order to assess inter-industry linkages and single out key industries. Despite the wide variety of wood-based products and the versatile use of wood, it turns out that there is a surprisingly linear organization of the production system when it comes to the flow of wood and paper through Germany (“throughput economy”).