Services Sector: Innovative Businesses Export More

Innovative businesses from the services sector export more often than their less innovative competitors. This is the result of a current study by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim. For the first time the connection between innovation activity and the exports of a company in the services sector was analysed. There have already been some studies on this topic for the processing industries. Those studies revealed that in the processing industries, too, innovation activity has a positive influence on the export behaviour of businesses. The ZEW study further shows that the qualification of the staff likewise exerts an influence on the export activity: Service providers with higher qualified staff export more often.

The study is based on the Innovation Survey carried out annually by ZEW in the services sector and the processing industries. The study mainly focused on business-related industries. In the past, services were counted as non-tradable goods and therefore non-exportable. Due to the developments in the telecommunications market and the on-going deregulation especially within the EU, the share of exportable goods and services has sharply increased throughout the past few years. According to the ZEW survey, 20 per cent of the service providers are exporters.

Contact

Dr. Norbert Janz, E-mail: janz@zew.de