Results of the SERVICEGAP project presented during the CASE Policy Research Seminar
On February 15th, 2013, CASE organized a concluding Policy Research Seminar discussing the results of research conducted within the scope of the FP7-funded project SERVICEGAP. This three-year project focused on academic and policy concerns stemming from the increasing importance of the market services sector and the crucial role it appears to play for differential economic performance among industrialized countries. The research concentrated on developments in productivity and its drivers within market services, linkages between services and manufacturing industries, innovation in service delivery, and the increasing internationalization of services. During the seminar, four of the CASE researchers involved in the project presented the results of their work.
Canan Yildirim, CASE Fellow, discussed the way in which the global crisis had affected market power in Central and Eastern Europe and what has been the impact of foreign ownership. The results of her research show that, while there was some convergence in country-level market power during the pre-crisis period, the onset of the global crisis has put an end to this process. Moreover, bank-level market power appeared to vary significantly with respect to ownership characteristics. The presentation of Mrs. Yildirim was commented by Mark Allen, Senior IMF Resident Representative for Central and Eastern Europe.
Krzysztof Szczygielski discussed the topic of technology strategies in high- and low-tech service sectors, which he investigated together with Richard Woodward and Wojciech Grabowski. Their research aimed to examine the relationship between strategy elements and the determinants of strategies. The main findings show that, though industry effects are definitely relevant, their role is less profound than that suggested by some previous studies. Moreover, technology strategies are influenced by both firm capabilities and industry effects. The comments to Mr. Szczygielski’s presentation were given by Łukasz Konopielko from Lazarski University.
The study undertaken by Maciej Sobolewski and Grzegorz Poniatowski is devoted to competitiveness of business service industries (BSI) across the European Union and the role of innovation and labor productivity. In their presentation, Mr. Sobolewski and Mr. Poniatowski noted that Europe exhibits a clear geographical pattern with respect to differences in the competitiveness of BSI and the picture of clusters overlaps with income distribution to a large extent. Moreover, research shows that Poland is the only new Member State revealing relative success in the development of BSI (on a level similar to that of older EU members).
All the results will soon be published by CASE in the Network Studies and Analyses series.
To read more about the project and CASE’s involvement, please click here.
