"complementary explanation" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when you are further elaborating or providing additional details about something or somebody. For example: "The professor provided additional resources for further study in the form of a complementary explanation."
Writing recently in the Washington Post, Amanda Erickson proposed an alternative, or at least complementary, explanation.
A complementary explanation of the differences across gender is the changes in the production model of the economy.
A complementary explanation is that labour market regulations essentially affect the lower end of the wage distribution.
Moreover, the physical effects of a species on its environment might be a complementary explanation for rapid radiation events in species through the creation of new habitat types.
Furthermore, the significant buoyancy effect gave a complementary explanation to the mechanism of effects of operating conditions on the heat transfer coefficient.
This is also a complementary explanation for the impact of experience, as more information about the market, business networks and business skills will be acquired during that period.
In discussing both market and nonmarket forces in labour economics, the following discussion poses them not as alternatives but as complementary explanations.
Different benchmark definitions may yield separate complementary explanations.
We include several regressors in our econometric specification in order to account for a wide range of these complementary explanations.
Let us see for which conditions the model is realistic and propose complementary explanations for other conditions.
There are three complementary explanations for this abandonment of fiscal restraint, namely: –the growth of 'big government' conservatism.
