Objectives
Recent academic literature has highlighted the importance of productivity growth in the services sector to foster overall economic growth. It has also emphasized that much of the gap in the productivity growth of the European Union and the United States is due to developments in this sector. However, one of the main constraints to analyse the performance of the services sector is the measurement problems that it poses which has as a consequence the lack of internationally comparable data on its activities and environment. Precisely, the objective of the INDICSER project, funded by the European Commission 7th Framework Programme, is to develop indicators that allow analysing the determinants of growth in the services sector in the EU.
Hence, the INDICSER project is developing a comprehensive set of indicators by applying existing concepts and will also design and experiment with new methodologies. This will be carried out within an overall coherent structural framework designed to reflect the key concepts of productivity. The indicators will measure industry-level output, inputs, productivity growth and its determinants (innovation, technology and market environment) for both market and non-market services. The indicators also need to be feasible, internationally comparable and relevant for economic and social policy analysis.
The tasks of the INDICSER project are structured in seven working packages (WP): WP1 aims to build indicators of output, inputs and productivity. WP2 (ICT & innovation) develops new indicators on innovation, technology and intangible investment in market services. WP3 (market environment) consists in building competition and internationalisation indicators for the market services. Financial services are the focus of WP4. WP 5 and WP 6 are centred on non-market services: health and education, respectively. WP 7 will suggest the development of several new indicators which cannot yet be rolled out on a large scale but might be in the future (measurement of output in insurance, collective services and distributive trades and a combined research sector).
In the mid-term conference of Valencia the progress of each working package will be presented and discussed, showing the advances achieved so far.
Programme
Thursday 7 April
9.15am – 9.35am
Coffee
9.35am – 10.00am
Welcome and Introduction
10.00am – 11.00am
WP3 - Market Environment
Ana Rincon-Aznar (NIESR) Labour Market regulation Indicators: Sectoral estimates
Achilles Anagnostopoulos and Stan Siebert (BHAM) Labour Market Regulation in Greece
11.00am – 11.15am
Break
11.15am – 1.00pm
WP4 - Financial Services
Robert Inklaar (RUG) Overview: Indicators, Measurement of bank output
Aljar Meester (RUG) Efficiency measures, with an application to banking
Juan Fernández de Guevara and Joaquín Maudos (Ivie) Financial Crisis, Financial Integration and Economic Growth: The European Case
Plamen Nikolov (European Commission. DG Internal Market and Services) A review of the Basel III impact studies: do banks and regulators see eye to eye?
1.00pm – 2.15pm
Lunch
2.15pm – 4.00pm
WP2 - ICT and Innovation
Christian Rammer (ZEW) Innovation indicators from CIS
Jonathan Haskel Intangibles and growth in the EU
Felix Roth (CEPS) Trust and Growth – A Sectoral Analysis
Priit Vahter (BHAM) Learning from open innovation: how openness today helps firms to innovate tomorrow
4.00pm - 4.20pm
Break
4.20pm – 5.20pm
WP1 - Input, output and productivity
Tarek Harchaoui (RUG) Revision of the EU-US productivity gap in market services
Marcel Timmer (RUG) Making room for China: A global value chain approach
Friday 8 April
9.00am – 9.15am
Coffee
9.15am – 10.00am
The INDICSER workprogramme and planning for the mid term report
Mary O’Mahony
10.00am – 10.30am
Ian Perry (EC) Future economic research opportunities: the Green Paper and consultation on a Common Strategic Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
10.30am – 10.45am
Break
10.45am – 12.45pm
WP5 - Health Services
Mary O’Mahony (BHAM) Measuring health sector performance in the EU
Lucy Stokes (NIESR) The role of quality adjustment in assessing the performance of health services
Matilde Mas (Ivie) Productivity measurement when publicly owned assets are present. An application to the Health Sector
Francisco Goerlich (Ivie) Health capital: Methods and data requirements
Ana Aizcorbe (BEA) Towards a Health Satellite Account for the US: Plans and Progress
12.45pm – 2.00pm
Lunch
2.00pm – 3.45pm
WP6 and WP7 - Education Services and University output
Jorgen Mortensen (CEPS) Overview of WP6 work and measures of inequality
David Wilkinson (NIESR) How do different measures of quality of early years provision compare? And how does quality influence child outcomes?
Yasheng Maimaiti (BHAM) Education output and productivity in the EU: Preliminary estimates
Jose Manuel Pastor (Ivie) The long term effects of the activities of the universities
3.45pm - 4.00pm.
Close of Meeting
Mary O’Mahony and Ian Perry
Coordinator
Mary O'Mahony, University of Birmingham
Matilde Mas, Universitat de València and Ivie
Participant Institutions
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Deutsches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)
European Commission (EC)
Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económica (Ivie)
KOPINT-TÁRKI Economic Research Institute Ltd (TARKI)
National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)
University of Birmingham (BHAM)
University of Groningen (RUG)
Zentrum fuer Europaeische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
Venue
Fundación Universidad – Empresa, Adeit
Plaza Virgen de la Paz, 3
46001 Valencia