What are services? Misconceptions and neglected insights from the productivity controversy in the classical period

Abstract

This article aims to explore how the productivity controversy of the classical period, in which Adam Smith’s concept of productive and unproductive labor was debated, has influenced the general view of services. It provides important insights into the specific characteristics of services that have emerged in this debate and that can be used for further developing a theory of services. It shows that certain innovative concepts previously proposed by authors like Heinrich von Storch, William Nassau Senior, and Friedrich List deserve to be rediscovered for a modern analysis of services.