An Experiment with Cross-Entropy Minimization : Estimation Interregional Trade Flows in Quebec

In this paper, we report on an experimental application of Kullback-Leibler cross-entropy minimization to estimate trade flows between regions. Interregional trade flows were estimated for 31 categories of goods and services, between three regions of the Province of Quebec in 1992: the Montreal and Quebec metropolitain areas, and the Rest-of-Quebec. With this bayesian-style method, we were able to obtain interregional flows that respect the marginal totals taken from pre-existing regional social accounting matrices, using transportation flow data as a priori distributions