Services Sector Export in Europe

Anatolijs Prohorovs,Marina Solesvik

doi:10.3390/su10124574

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the changes that occurred in the service exports of thirty-eight European countries in the period of 2005–2016. We have found that the existing world trend related to the growth of service exports is also present in Europe. However, the trend of the service exports’ share growth in the general volume of export is not common for all European countries. We found that higher growth rates are observed in European countries with lower levels of GDP per capita. We also discovered the presence of a strong positive correlation between growth in service exports and GDP growth, as well as between growth in service exports and GDP per capita. We also found that there is a linear correlation between the growth of service exports and the growth of GDP per capita, as well as between the growth in service exports and GDP growth. The data obtained allowed us to conclude that European countries, categorized as “Innovation Leaders” in accordance with the European Innovation Scoreboard, are not the leading countries in Europe with regard to the rates of service export growth. We also discovered that service exports in Europe are less sensitive to adverse macroeconomic effects than goods exports.

Highlights

The results of some previous research [1,2] show that there is currently a macroeconomic shift towards services
To determine the tendencies in service export growth in various European countries we divided all the countries into four quartiles, having ranked the countries based on their rates of service export growth in an ascending order, i.e., from lowest to highest
In the period of 2005–2016, in European countries the share of service exports in total exports increased from 24% to 27.4%, which corresponds to the findings of numerous researchers regarding service export share growth in international trade [3,4,5,9]

Summary

Introduction

The results of some previous research [1,2] show that there is currently a macroeconomic shift towards services. According to the findings of Loungani et al [5], which they obtained by analyzing data on the export structure of 192 countries, the share of services in 2014 constituted more than 20 per cent of total exports, while in 1970 it was only about 9 per cent. The findings of the global research carried out by UNCTAD [7] indicate that only during the last decade, service exports, for developed countries, began showing a strong and increasing impact on the overall GDP growth. The correlation analysis [7] shows that service exports have a positive impact on GDP growth in developing countries. Previous research, based on the analysis of data from 125 countries, discovered statistically significant relations between service exports and GDP per capita for 2007 [8]

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion