Description
Book SynopsisDespite the fact that services have overtaken industry in terms of employment and GDP in developed countries, rigorous economic study of the service sector remains seriously neglected.
Trade ReviewAcclaim for the first edition:
‘This is a well-written, provocative book, featuring much new material, original data analyses and interesting insights. Despite the proliferation of books on various aspects of services, there is nothing quite like it around. In particular, examination of the challenges that the growth of services presents to conventional economics is very valuable.’ -- Ian Miles, University of Manchester, UK
‘This is an intriguing book that contains many interesting ways of conceptualising service from the perspective of economics. It makes a number of important contributions to the academic literature. It is one of the very few books and it might even be the only book to be written by an economist on the economics of services – it is thus a pioneer work and is of value in that it attempts to bring together the work that economists have done on services.’ -- John Bryson, University of Birmingham, UK
Table of ContentsContents: Preface Part I: Introduction 1. Purpose, Definitions and Present Structure of Service Consumption 2. Three Phases in the Development of Service Sector Employment 3. Key Service Characteristics for Economic Analysis Part II: Micro Foundations 4. Adding the Spatial Aspect to Elementary Cost Theory 5. Service Production Costs 6. Service Distribution Costs 7. The Basic Trade-off and Derivation of the Supply-System Cost Function 8. Optimal Charges for Services with the Focus on the User Cost Component 9. Location Patterns and Competition Part III: Driving Forces For and Against the Service Economy 10. Interpreting the Past Development by the Model of Unbalanced Productivity Growth 11. Urbanization and the Emergence Service Markets 12. Transport Motorization, Market Area Enlargement and Urban Sprawl 13. Towards a Self-Service Economy with Edge City Settlers as Prime Movers? Part IV: Public Policy Towards Services 14. Policy for Promotion of Urban Amenities 15. The Overriding Problem of the Modern Welfare State 16. Trust in Economic Growth Cannot Replace Allocation Policy 17. Merit Goods Revisited 18. Towards Allocative Efficiency 1: Reformation of the Resource Allocation Over the Budget 19. Towards Allocative Efficiency 2: Marginal Cost Pricing and Differential Commodity Taxation 20. Towards X-efficiency in Public Service Provision 21. Summary of Policy Recommendations References Index
