We address the role of imported intermediates in productivity by applying a methodology that proposes an equivalence between input–output analysis and data envelopment analysis, and decomposes sectoral productivity gains into two factors: efficiency change and technical change. We illustrate this by using data for Spain in the 2008–2015 period with three levels of labor skills, capital, and twenty-eight industries, and compare the results of two different settings: one including only domestic intermediates and the other incorporating total (i.e. both domestic and imported) inputs.