PREFACE

Previous research shows that both exporting and the use of advanced technologies independently enhance the performance of U.S. manufacturing plants in a variety of ways.  The research presented below shows that plants that both export and use advanced technology outperform other plants in a number of important ways: they increase their employment more rapidly, they pay higher wages, and they are less likely to fail. The research also shows that manufacturing plants that use advanced technologies are more likely to export.

SUMMARY

Service Industries and Economic Performance addresses three questions that have troubled economists for more than a decade: whether service-oriented economies can sustain high rates of output growth; whether they can generate large numbers of good jobs; and whether they can compete effectively in global markets.

Compared with a generation ago, U.S. service industries now account for a larger share of real output, and a much larger share of employment. Service inputs also comprise more of the embodied value of all the goods and services Americans produce for final use.