Template-type: ReDif-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Windrum Paul
Author-Name: Tomlinson Mark
Author-workplace-name: MERIT 
Title: Knowledge-intensive services and international competitiveness: a four country comparison
Abstract: The nature and consequences of services innovation remains a woefully under-researchedtopic. The paper calls into question two statements that are frequentlyrepeated in the political-economic discourse on services. The first concerns thesuggestion that Germany is a ‘services laggard’ that needs to restructure its domesticeconomy if it is to remain internationally competitive. By contrast, the UK is frequentlyheld up as an example of a successfully restructured ‘services economy’. The paperdraws an important distinction between the quantity of services in a domestic economyand the degree of connectivity between services and other economic activities. Thelatter, it is argued, is far more important in determining the size of spillovers fromservices innovation enjoyed within a domestic economy and, hence, to internationalcompetitiveness. Particular attention is paid to the role and impact of knowledge-intensiveservice sectors in this regard. In addition to the UK and Germany, data isdrawn from the Netherlands and Japan. Using these four comparative cases we explorethe distinction between a high representation of services in the domestic economy, andthe innovation spillovers facilitated by a high degree of connectivity between servicesand other economic sectors within a domestic economy.
Keywords: economic development an growth ; 
Series: Research Memoranda
Creation-Date: 1999
Number: 023
File-URL: http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/objects/guid:d1075cc2-8266-43e6-849c-9738744d44de/datastreams/ASSET1/content
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 105677
Handle: RePEc:unm:umamer:1999023