Commissioned by: European Commission, Framework Programme
Study by: Austrian Institute of Economic Research – Statistics Netherlands – Istituto Nazionale di Statistica – Lunaria Associazione di Promozione Sociale e Impresa Sociale – United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology – Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques – Scuola superiore Sant'Anna – Statistics Austria – University College London – University of Bielefeld – University of Ljubljana – University of Tartu – Centre for European Economic Research – Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
This paper examines broad patterns of structural change for a large number of countries on a global scale and for a smaller
set of advanced industrialised countries over time. The findings show that structural change over the past decades followed
the three-sector hypothesis. The past decades were characterised by the rise of the service sector, driven especially by business
services and non-market service. At the same time as manufacturing sectors are declining in terms of shares, they remain the
sectors with the highest contributions to aggregate productivity growth. An analysis of determinants of structural change
confirms that country competencies related to institutional quality, knowledge generation and industrial application of the
new knowledge are an important driving force of structural changes towards services, but that they have a heterogeneous impact
on manufacturing subsectors. High technology manufacturing share seems not to be characterised by a tendency to decline with
the development of country competencies. Broad policy implications are discussed.
JEL-Codes:O11, O14
Keywords:Structural Change, Service Share, Manufacturing Share
Research group:Industrial, Innovation and International Economics