Despite their key role in production systems, business services have traditionally been\u00a0ignored in productivity and innovation analyses. The scant information available (most of\u00a0surveys on innovation or business performance commonly exclude service activities) has\u00a0been one of the major reasons for this ignorance. Consequently, few studies empirically\u00a0analyse the impact of business services on innovation, productivity or exports. However,\u00a0Arnold et al. (2006) provide support for the argument that improvements in service\u00a0industries contribute to enhancing the performance of downstream economic activities,\u00a0constituting an essential element for promoting growth and reducing poverty. This project\u00a0is an attempt to contribute to the scarce literature on business services. In particular, the\u00a0main objective is to find further evidence concerning the effects of business services\u00a0on innovation, productivity and export activity of manufacturing firms. For this\u00a0purpose, we used microdata for Spanish, Turkish and Moroccan manufacturing firms.\u00a0In\u00a0Spain the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales (ESEE) contains very detailed\u00a0statistics about the use of ten types of business services: advertising, legal activities,\u00a0accounting and bookkeeping, tax consultancy, auditing activities, management activities,\u00a0labour recruitment, training, computer programming and software consultancy. Not only\u00a0information about the use of business services is included, but also on the origin of the\u00a0services (in-house production, external provided or both). This allows taking two\u00a0complementary points of view when analysing the use of business services by\u00a0distinguishing those situations in which the business service provider is external to the\u00a0firm. Data availability for business services in Turkey is considerably lower, so several\u00a0proxies are employed in order to approximate the functions commonly carried out by\u00a0business services, namely, variables referred to client support, metrology services and\u00a0services received for innovation, operation, strategy and prototype development. To\u00a0construct these variables data from three different sources are combined: the Annual\u00a0Survey of Manufacturing Industries (ASMI), conducted by the State Institute of Statistics\u00a0(SIS), Innovation Surveys conducted by the SIS and the Industrial Technology Services\u00a0Survey (ITS Survey), specifically designed for monitoring and evaluating the effects of\u00a0technology services. In the case of Morocco, four types of business services are\u00a0distinguished: management training services, technical training services, management\u00a0consulting services and technical consulting services. In addition, a variable that stands for\u00a0the use of consulting services for technology transfer is also included. The information\u00a0analysed comes from an annual survey carried out by the Ministry Industry and Trade and\u00a0from the Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) elaborated by Ministry Industry and Trade\u00a0and the World Bank.<\/p>\n
Spain is used as an illustrative case of a middle income country that boosted its growth\u00a0rapidly (Spain during the earlier 90\u00b4s). This benchmark case is compared to the cases of\u00a0Turkey and Morocco in recent days. The effect of business services on growth can\u00a0translate via prices, innovation, productivity or a differentiation strategy that allows\u00a0entering new markets. In our study we focus on three aspects and their relations.<\/p>\n
Firstly, we try to verify whether the use of business services contributes to innovation.\u00a0Most of business services act as facilitators, carriers and sources of innovation for their\u00a0clients firms. We investigate these links between manufacturing client firms and business\u00a0service firms. In particular, econometric models where the dependent variable is\u00a0innovation are estimated for the three countries. In Spain a unique innovation model is\u00a0estimated, whereas in Turkey and Morocco a differentiation between product and process\u00a0innovation is established. Important similarities are found among countries, although\u00a0differences in the type of business services analysed have to be taken into account. The\u00a0most detailed classification of business services in Spain allows identifying some\u00a0industries directly related to innovation performance like research and development,\u00a0computer programming, software consultancy, advertising or training. In Turkey the\u00a0majority of the variables related to business services show a positive effect on innovation,\u00a0the impact being somewhat lower in process innovation. In the case of Morocco it calls the\u00a0attention the key role played by training services and management consultancy services.<\/p>\n
Secondly, we examine if productivity is directly affected by increases in the use of\u00a0business services. We propose to estimate a model where TFP is explained by a set of\u00a0characteristics of the firms and an indicator of the use of business services. In Spain and\u00a0Morocco probit models are employed, whereas in Turkey an OLS model is employed. A\u00a0high number of business services industries show a positive impact on productivity in\u00a0Spain, whereas in Turkey and Morocco the impact is restricted to a lower number of\u00a0industries. Nevertheless measurement problems in relation to TFP, in combination with the\u00a0lower use in these countries, could explain these differences.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, we investigate how the openness of firms is affected by the use of business\u00a0services. Most of the studies on the internalization patterns of business service firms point\u00a0out that following clients abroad is one of the major motives for service firms to\u00a0internationalise. We will estimate equations to examine whether the use of this type of\u00a0services can foster export participation and export volume. These effects could take place through an increase in innovation and productivity which translates into lower unitary\u00a0costs for firms and raises their probability to enter into foreign markets. On a general basis,\u00a0the impact of the use of business services on exports seems to be lower than in the case of\u00a0innovation and productivity, but the Turkish and Moroccan cases seem to be opposite.\u00a0Thus, whereas in Turkey the majority of the variables related to business services show a\u00a0positive effect on exports, in Morocco the use of business services diminishes the\u00a0likelihood of exporting.<\/p>\n
In the following sections a deep analysis of the effects of business services on the three\u00a0variables mentioned below is carried out. This project can be considered a first step in the\u00a0role played by services, and more specifically by business services in the MENA countries,\u00a0the positive results obtained open the door for future analyses to better understand what\u00a0business services can represent in the near future of these countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite their key role in production systems, business services have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5889,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134\/revisions\/5889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.femise.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}