Any economy shows significant and varied interlinkages among its production and consumption, investment and saving, all of
its various sectors, and with the outside world. These relationships and interlinkages can be captured in a moment in time in
a table known as a Social Accounting Matrix or, more commonly, a SAM. The SAM is the core database for computable general
equilibrium (CGE) modeling, a modeling technique that allows ex-ante analysis of policy scenarios and dialogue and their
impact on the economy as a whole.
A SAM is a comprehensive and coherent socio-economic database, which portrays the abovementioned inter-linkages
amongst the various domestic sectors as well as with the rest of the world. It is a square matrix where a column sum
equals its corresponding row sum. Each cell in the SAM represents payments from a column account to a row account, and
income received by a row account from a column account. The rows represent income received and the columns payments
made. As a result, the SAM represents an analytical tool that highlights interactions throughout the economy in a circular
flow of income. The SAM differs from supply and use tables because it is not restricted to only income generation and utilization
across sectors. It also includes the distribution of income across institutions (financial, non-financial, and the government)
as well as relationships between the domestic economy and the rest of the world. Subject to data availability, SAM
accounts in each category may be disaggregated appropriately in order to address in more detail policy questions analyzed in
economic models such as CGE models.
The Egypt disaggregated SAM for 2010/11, was constructed with a special focus on the agriculture sector and on
income distribution amongst households. It is composed of 52 activity sectors, 49 commodity sectors, three types of factors
of production: labor (unskilled labor, semiskilled labor, and skilled labor), land, and capital; a government account, as well as,
enterprises, households, savings and investment, and the rest of the world (ROW). The household sector is divided spatially
into urban and rural households, with each disaggregated into 10 deciles according to expenditure. In contrast, the previous
(more aggregated) version of the 2010/11 SAM only included 53 sectors (with only one crop and livestock sector), one household
sector that also included other domestic nongovernment institutions (enterprises), and one labor factor.