New Measures of British Service Outputs

Abstract

Official statistics suggest that over the last two decades the commercial service sector has grown rapidly both in absolute terms and relative to the rest of the British economy. Given the importance of service activities, and the fact that many of them are notoriously difficult to quantify, it is desirable that the reliability of service output measures be subject to scrutiny and, where possible, improvement. Accordingly this article presents some alternative output measures which have been compiled for financial, recreational and catering services, and compares the picture which emerges, for the economy as a whole and for individual service industries, with, that portrayed by official data.