The relative weight of manufacturing and services in Europe: An innovation perspective

This paper uses an innovation-based taxonomy of both manufacturing and service industries to assess the role of the process of structural change of the last 25 years on the rate of productivity growth in Europe. US and Japan. The empirical analysis exploits the shift-share methodology for a decomposition of aggregate labor productivity growth. A modified version is applied, that allows to interpret whether employment has shifted to higher or lower productivity sectors. The results are discussed in light of the role that the different industries play according to the innovation-based taxonomy. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All Fights reserved.