Abstract
Nowadays nobody questions that all developed countries have become “service economies”, particularly taking into account the employment figures, but also considering the weight of service industries as a whole in GDP. The objective of this chapter is not only to describe the trends identified analyzing the economic structure of advanced economies but to clarify also which are the main factors boosting the almost ever-increasing importance of service industries. This last aspect is analyzed both from the demand and the supply sides. The chapter includes also some reflections on the expected growth of services in the following years.
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- 1.
This behaviour of the prices of services has driven up the general price index of many economies, with the corresponding inflationary impact and a negative influence on their competitiveness.
- 2.
See Mañas, Gabaldon, and Cuadrado-Roura (2002).
- 3.
- 4.
Gershuny and Miles (1983) already underlined the trend to self-produce services in the homes as a consequence of the cost increase involved by their demand to external producers (repairs, leisure, domestic service, etc.).
- 5.
Including transport and storage, renting of machinery and distribution services.
- 6.
Figures estimated from the National Input–output Tables, 2005. Eurostat databases.
- 7.
Obviously, countries also acquire services from other countries, but we refer here to the role of the demand for services received by a country, which boosts this sector of its economy.
- 8.
Such is the case of many personal services.
- 9.
This statement immediately suggests that, in many cases, the measurement of service productivity is made according to the same pattern as in the case of manufacturing, i.e., by linking the GVA to the number of employees or to the number of hours employed. Undoubtedly, in sectors such as health, education and others, this form of measurement is not exact. The employment of more and better equipment and technological developments enables an offering of higher quality services. However, it is arguable that the output of such activities may be identified just with GVA and not with other very different product indicators related to health or levels of education. See the excellent research carried out by Maroto (2010) regarding the productivity measurement issues in the services sector and the different positions in this regard.
- 10.
Amazon is one example of a company offering services at an international scale. Others devoted to sport activities and material have also changed their offer as they incorporate customer loyalty programmes including connection with and information on important events, etc. The example shown by Barrabés Cº demonstrates how a company from a village in the Pyrenees can provide services and offer high-mountain and climbing equipment in the United States, Kuwait, or South-East Asia.
- 11.
To this regard, see the research carried out by Pilat and Wölfl (2005) published by the OECD: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/43/33/34946920.pdf
- 12.
Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006. Its implementation in all countries has been slower than anticipated.
- 13.
That is, the displacement of the production of some services to countries where production costs and regulations in force are more advantageous. This has been the case of computer treatments (where India has absorbed a large production volume), the production of books, and material for media and leisure, for example.
- 14.
- 15.
The examples of computing services, call centres, book publishing processes, etc. are well known and numerous.
- 16.
We could maybe exclude the so-called ‘routine’ services, such as industrial cleaning and domestic service, for example, where innovation is highly limited.
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Cuadrado-Roura, J.R. (2013). Towards Increasingly “Tertiarised” Economies: Facts, Factors and Prospects. In: Cuadrado-Roura, J. (eds) Service Industries and Regions. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35801-2_2
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