Yulia Melikhova

Trade in services and tertiarisation of the Visegrád Four economies

After several decades of planned economy and manufacturing-oriented economic policy, during the last 20 years the Visegrád Four (V4) countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) have been experiencing a shift towards a market economy combined with intensification of services activity. This has resulted in increasing participation in international services trade and in becoming an important destination for services foreign direct investment. In addition to analysis of the changes services trade has been experiencing in the V4 countries, the objective of this article is to investigate whether a parallel process of tertiarisation has been taking place. In other words, we aim to find out whether the V4 production systems have been intensifying the employment of services intermediate inputs.

Russia’s WTO accession and trade in services: an examination into Russia–EU relationships

A Spain-based team of economists specialized in the study of services presents the results of their research on the evolution of Russian international transactions in services in the light of its imminent accession to the WTO. The study analyzes the evolution of three out of four modes of international transactions in services with Russia’s main trading partner, the European Union. Focusing on exports and imports and on foreign direct investment, the authors aim to assess if there was any process of substitution over the period 2005–2010. Business services emerge as one of the most dynamic group in terms of international transactions.

Localization of Business Services in European Regions: Large Urban Areas Stand Out

Abstract The recent increase in business services in terms of both value added and employment has had a positive effect on regional economies, helping them to create a comparative advantage and contributing to the general development of regional productive systems. This heterogeneous set of activities is characterized, among others, by its uneven distribution in the territory. In this paper we aim to identify the key factors that influence the location of business services within the NUTS 2 regions of the European Union. Using a multivariate analytical approach (combining a principal components factor analysis and a multiple linear regression by means of ordinary least squares), four key factors have been identified. In terms of their influence on the location of business services, we can pinpoint the following factors: urban dimension, competitiveness, accessibility and economic dynamism. It was found that business services tend to locate in urban, densely populated and dynamic areas with high levels of competitiveness and easy access.

Services in Russia: past, present, and future

In spite of ambitious modernization plans of the government, structural change in Russia is not proceeding in the direction of highly developed economies. Part of the lag in the tertiarization process can be explained by the fact that, as during the Soviet period, the role of services in the economy is still ignored, particularly regarding innovation. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the evolution of services in Russia since the mid-1990s and its future prospects by compiling data from the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, Rosstat, and the World Input–Output Database. Two complementary and novel perspectives are adopted: a production system perspective and a spatial perspective. Regarding services in the Russian production system, comparison of interindustry linkages reveals that, in addition to traditional relevant activities like wholesale/retail trade and transport and communications, business services are acquiring great importance as production process inputs. Concerning the spatial perspective, we observe a greater presence of non-market services in less densely populated federal districts, while strategic service activities are highly concentrated in the most dynamic ones. Analysis of major Russian cities confirmed the trend of business services concentrating in densely populated and highly innovative cities. In brief, services, and in particular business services, can be a means to boost innovation and growth in Russia, but more attention from political leaders is necessary for these activities. The modernization process should abandon its current “high-technology industry myopia” and take into consideration the innovative, and especially, the knowledge-diffuser role, that services can exert.

Tertiarisation of the Productive System of Slovakia: an Inputoutput Approach

Abstract The aim of the paper was to study the process of tertiarisation of the Slovak economy during the period between 1995 and 2009 and to analyse the relations of services with the rest of productive activities. The empirical study conducted in this work is based on the data from the WIOD symmetric input-output tables. The main trends of the structural transformation of Slovak productive system in analysed period was that services (mostly business services) increased their share (in term of value added) within the whole economy and the overall degree of tertiarisation rose. Domestic services not only increased their capacity to encourage their own production but intensified their relations with the rest of the economic activities.