Gisela Di Meglio

The Role of Cost Related Factors in the Competitiveness of European Services

The emergence of service offshoring places competitiveness at the centre of the discussion on international trade and business. Service competitiveness factors remain a field that is largely unexplored. This paper addresses the role of cost related factors explaining service competitiveness. It empirically tests trade performance of 15 European countries in 8 service markets in order to observe the role of cost factors, country effects and industry specific patterns. A model based on cross section and panel data regressions is suggested in order to test the influence of cost determinants and their elasticities. Results show great heterogeneity among service activities and suggest the importance of non-cost related factors within European Union countries.

Public services performance: an extended framework and empirical assessment across the enlarged EU

Performance of the public sector is at the core of long-term wealth creation and welfare improvement. Yet, its measurement remains inadequate and flawed with data deficiency. In this paper we propose an extended framework for the assessment of public services performance that accounts for long-term impacts on welfare and empirically evaluate it across twenty-five European countries on the basis of a wide set of proxy indicators. We relate the performance scores to input costs indices and propose a coherent typology of countries that corresponds to the patterns of economic effectiveness of public services. The empirical analysis reveals that, because of differences in input costs across the enlarged EU, the economic effectiveness of public services varies to a much larger extent than the performance, with some relatively large-sized governments (Sweden, Denmark, Austria) being the most effective ones.

Explanation for public and private service growth in the enlarged EU

This paper complements a large body of literature on structural change and underlying factors for the expansion of services. The main aim is to explore the determinants of the employment growth in the enlarged European Union from the perspective of various service groups, public, private and mixed services, and to identify which factors played the most significant role in the period 1995–2007. The roles played by standard determinants, the state, social and demographic changes, institutional framework of labour markets and membership to old EU15 considerably differ across service groups.

Services in Developing Economies: A New Chance for Catching-Up?

The paper analyses the potential contribution of services as a driving force of economic growth in developing countries within a Kaldorian framework. In doing so, we revisit Kaldor Growth Laws and econometrically test them for a number of economic activities (including four service branches) across twenty-nine developing countries from Asia, Latin-America and Sub-Saharan Africa during a time span of three decades (1975-2005). Panel data estimations are complemented with a decomposition of labour productivity growth by means of a shift-share analysis. The results induce to question the traditional role posed to services as unlikely drivers of productivity growth in developing economies. As a matter of fact, business services seem to allow productivity growth by the same Kaldorian mechanisms that have traditionally made manufacturing the key driver of growth.

Services in EU competition policy

The analysis of competition in services is particularly relevant, given the growing importance of this sector in modern economies and the segmentation still present in many tertiary markets. The objective of this paper is threefold. Firstly, to study the relationship between competition and European Union (EU) competition policy in services by analysing the influence exerted by aspects such as the share of services in the economy or by the market power of enterprises. Secondly, to present a set of sectoral cases under EU competition policy that illustrates the application of competition rules into major services sectors. Lastly, to identify the main challenges that competition policy faces with respect to services. Results show that competition in services markets varies widely by sector. The attention that EU competition policy pays to services should be explained by a wide set of factors (not just market size and market shares); to this end, this paper provides a detailed, sector-by-sector analysis. Several challenges are identified at both sectoral and at overall levels. We conclude that while there is no need for a new specific competition policy for services, more attention should be paid to increasing competition in some particular service markets.