Abstract
In this section, we collect and examine the main themes in the analysis of service activities in the 1935–1965 period, beginning with the emergence and increasing use of the term tertiary sector.
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References
London, MacMillan, 1935.
London, MacMillan, 1945.
Fisher’s earlier work was in New Zealand.
The Clash of Progress and Security, pp. 25–31.
London, MacMillan, 1940.
Colin Clark draws also attention to the fact that in a period of expansion, service activities can display an extremely high rate of return.
Engel, C.: Die produtions und consumptionsverhaltnisse des Konigreiches Sachens. Zeitschrift des statistischen Bureaus des koniglich sachsischen Ministerium des Innern, (1857).
London, MacMillan, 1942.
Colin Clark and the statisticians generally are accused by Fourastié of “giving a purely formal and enumerative definition” (Le grand espoir du XXe siècle, p. 83).
“Progrès technique et répartition professionnelle de la population” (Technical progress and the relative importance of occupations) Population, 1–2, 1949.
Le grand espoir du XXe siècle, Paris, PUF, 1949, Gallimard, 1963.
For example, labour productivity in French agriculture has risen, since 1951, consistently faster than in manufacturing industry, in particular in the 1951–1973 period (by 6.3% in agriculture and 5.1% in manufacturing, resp. 4.6 and 3.5 in 1973–1984). See Dubois, P.: Ruptures de croissance et progrès technique (Turning points in growth and technical progress), Economie et Statistique, Oct. 1985. Similar increases in labour productivity in agriculture have also occurred in other countries.
Le grand espoir du XXe siècle, op. cit, p. 314.
In The Economics of 1960 (op. cit, pp. 28–29), Clark estimated the per capita tertiary income as a function of per capita total income, with a slope coefficient of 0.6985 and an intercept of -102.
For a more detailed survey of this debate, see, for example: Singelmann, J.: The Sectoral Transformation of the Labor-Force in Seven Industrial Countries, 1920–1960, Ph.D. Thesis, Austin, University of Texas, USA, 1974.
In: Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations, II: Industrial Distribution of National Product and Labor Force, Economic Development and Cultural Change, supplement, july.
In: Modern Economic Growth, Rate, Structure and Spread, New Haven, Yale University Press.
Including mines.
Electricity only.
The first serious discussion of the delineation between goods and services, or some sort of compromise between them in the product of a specific activity, was published by: Lengelle, M: La révolution tertiaire, Paris, Génin, 1966. This book is particularly interesting because it suggests a gradation of tertiary activities, depending on how strongly the service supplied is related to the production of goods.
See: Naville, P., Cahiers d’études des sociétés industrielles et de l’automation, 5, and 7, (1963, 1965) as well as: Courthéoux, J.P.: La Répartition des Activités Economiques, Paris, Centre de recherche d’urbanisme, 1966.
Sauvy, A., op. cit, pp 66–67.
See Browning, H., Singelmann, J., The Transformation of the U.S. Labor Force: the Interaction of Industries and Occupations, Politics and Society, 8(3–4), 1978, pp. 481–509.
Bell, D.: The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting. New York, Basic Books, 1973, r.1976, UK edition: Heinemann Educational, 1974
In fact, as we saw before, Colin Clark’s results on this point are much less clear-cut than is generally assumed.
Bell, D., op cit, p. 125.
Bell’s forecasts are also well in line with more recent official forecasts by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS reports that, with only moderate overall growth, the percentage of wage and salary earning workers who work in the manufacturing sector, fell from 24.0% in 1976 to 20.0% in 1988, and expects it to fall further to 15.6% in the year 2000. The similar percentage for “operators, fabricators and labourers” (Le., not including white-collar workers in industry), is put at 12.6 in 2000, against 14.4 in 1988. (Monthly Labor Review, Nov. 1989).
Bell, op cit, p. 15.
Richta, R.: Civilization at the Crossroads: Social and Human Implications of the Scientific and Technical Revolution. (original: Czechoslovak Academy of Science, 1967, English translation, Prague, 1968, US distribution: International Arts and Science Press, White Plains, N.Y., 1969)
Bell, D., op. cit, p. 106.
Bell, D., op cil, p. 18.
Schumpeter, Joseph Alois: Capitalism, socialism and democracy, Fourth edition: New York, Harper & Row, 1950 (UK: Allen & Unwin, 1954), p. 152.
Baumol, W: Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth: The Anatomy of an Urban Crisis. American Economic Review, 57, June 1967, pp. 415–26.
Baumol, W., Blackman, S. and Wolff, E.: Unbalanced Growth Revisited: Asymptotic Stagnancy and New Evidence, American Economic Review, 75, 1985 pp. 806–816.
Baumol, W., Blackman, S., and Wolf, E.: Productivity and American Leadership, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1989.
There is, however, a large scope for economies through technology in government, as shown by T. Stanback in his book Computerization and the Transformation of Employment, Boulder, Westview Press, 1987.
According to T.J. Noyelle and T.M. Stanback (1990), productivity measurements in the U.S. are seriously distorted or largely meaningless for series covering nearly two thirds of GDP originated in services.
The most critical point is the likelihood of the constancy of the inputs ratio.assessment of America’s strength. However, services are analysed on the same theoretical basis: cost disease and asymptotic stagnancy.
Paris, Le Seuil (also 4th ed., 1969).
Paris, Le Seuil, 1964.
Paris, Le Seuil, 1963.
Paris, Denoel, 1969.
The concept of service relations was developed in a very innovative way by Erving Goffman in Asylums (Anchor Books, Doubleday & Co, New York, 1961). Goffman based part of his work on the pioneering works of Talcott Parsons (“The Professionals in the Social Structure” Social Forces, 17, (1939), reprinted in Essays in Sociological Theory Pure and Applied, The Free Press, New York, 1949), as well as on Everett C. Hughes (Men and their Work, The Free Press, New York, 1958), and Howard S. Becker (“The Professional Dance Musician and His Audience”, American Journal of Sociology LVII (1951). See also the remarkable book by Eliot Freidson Profession of Medicine, Harper & Row, New York, 1970.
Galbraith, J.K.: The New Industrial State, Signet Books, New American Library, New York, 1967 (UK: Hamish Hamilton, 1967, r (Pelican), 1969, 1970)
V.R. Fuchs (1968), and subsequently J. Singelmann (1974), criticised Galbraith for the indeed astonishing disregard for a group of activities which employed more than half of the working population.
We shall come back to this point in relation to the works of T. Noyelle and T.M. Stanback, to be discussed in the next chapter.
Compare Chapter 25 of The New Industrial State with the concluding chapter of Bell’s book.
Praderie, Michel: Les tertiaires Paris, Le Seuil, 1968.
Courthéoux, J.P.: La répartition des activités économique, op cit.
New-York, Columbia University Press, 1968.
“Productivity Trends in the Goods and Service Sector” (1964, occasional paper n¡ã 89); “The Growing Importance of the Service Industries” (1965, occasional paper n¡ã 96).
See Kuznets, 1957, op. cit.
Note that, in these studies, Fuchs classifies transport, communication and public utilities in the goods sector.
Bell cites Fuchs on a number of places.
Singelmann, J., op. cit.
See the last chapter of Singelmann’s thesis.
We already mentioned that there were others who paid less attention to that dimension (e.g. Galbraith).
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Delaunay, JC., Gadrey, J. (1992). The Tertiary Sector and Post-Industrial Society. In: Services in Economic Thought. International Studies in the Service Economy, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2960-2_5
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