Services employ an ever-increasing share of workers in all OECD countries. This trend is likely to continue as it reflects deep structural forces, such as increasing consumption of services with rising incomes and population ageing and the growing role of intangible assets. Services are very...

Germany’s manufacturing sector, which plays an important role for exports, has been performing well over the past decade in terms of labour productivity growth and international competitiveness. However, the services sector has had much slower growth rates. Competition often appears to be...

How prevalent are services sold together with goods? Using aggregate and micro-data, this report assesses this prevalence so as to gain a better understanding of how firms combine goods and services in their exports. Leaving aside the specific case of distribution services, 'Other business...

This paper uses a novel empirical approach to assess if the development of online platforms affects the productivity of service firms. We build a proxy measure of platform use across four industries (hotels, restaurants, taxis and retail trade) and ten OECD countries using internet search data...

This paper highlights India’s unique services export led growth path. Observing that Indian business services have helped manufacturers all over the world to become more efficient and productive, it raises the question how Indian business services can do the same for local manufacturers and...

This report provides new evidence on the role of services in global value chains (GVCs). With the release of the Trade in Value Added database, it was highlighted that services account for a larger share of world trade than suggested by traditional statistics. But this evidence does not tell the...

Within global value chains (GVCs), services and manufacturing activities are intertwined. This report further investigates the role played by services in GVCs by looking at patterns of specialisation in 23 services industries over the period 2000-2014. Relying on the concept of revealed...

The share of the tertiary sector in China’s value added has increased steadily, overtaking the share of the secondary sector in 2013. With increasing incomes, the share of services is expected to grow further as at higher incomes a larger share of income is spent on services. In addition to...

Services are an important part of global economic activity and of international trade. Nevertheless, compared to its very large tourism sector, the sector of high-end business services in Thailand remains small. As IT and information, and professional services are traded indirectly through value...

Services play a more important role in trade and employment in the United Kingdom than in most other OECD countries. The UK services sector is supported by an open and transparent trade regime, policies that support competition and innovation, and regulatory transparency that facilitates the...